


we belong to a wicked hallelujah

by doreah



Series: your heart is a shaken fist [4]
Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Support War Criminal, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Found Family, Marriage of Convenience, POV Bisexual Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Indulgent Domesticity and Wish Fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 122,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doreah/pseuds/doreah
Summary: Everything was a delicate balance, but she was—all things considered—your perfect match. And you were hers. Any lesser person would have likely killed themselves with Serena as a companion, but you’d kept each other distracted, occupied, challenged, and alive in the most fucked up way imaginable.You fit into me.Like a hook in an eye; that was the poem you read once.A fish hook, an open eye.But who is the hook and who is the eye now?
Relationships: June Osborne | Offred & Moira Strand, June Osborne | Offred/Serena Joy Waterford, Luke Bankole/June Osborne | Offred
Series: your heart is a shaken fist [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1296203
Comments: 208
Kudos: 205





	1. alphabits and war crimes

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. I finally got it done, and I'm sorry it's so long. It is indeed a sequel to [god made me a hungry woman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730035), but from June's perspective to tie it all together. It follows from that and it's probably fairly difficult to understand anything about this, without reading the rest of the series first.
> 
> The biggest, sloppiest, tightest hugs to @lazurus_girl for once again spending her free time fixing this mess, piecing together my nonsense, and generally being the best beta ever. There will be lines here that you'll read and go, "Wow." and those will probably be the ones she's added because that is just how awesome she is. So I can't even take credit for every word and sentence. Let's all thank her together! <3
> 
> Also a shoutout to @warningsine for her help and listening to me blather about it. On this topic, I suppose I should also thank my wife who I pray will never, _ever_ find this because I totally stole some things she's said to me, word for word, and put them in here too. And that's just theft ;) But hey, what's hers is mine, and what's mine is my own.
> 
> And, for fun, [a playlist on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2GxBgQo4Jofj5RkQTouZZP?si=Ax2pcDKDRg29mUI_mf9eZQ).

There's a single white rose, dried and yellowing, hanging by a string over your mirror on your cluttered dresser. You can't see it at the moment, in the darkness of a bedroom at night, but you know it's there where you left it. It once had companions, eight of them in fact, all fresh and in bloom, placed carefully in a second-hand vase from the vintage shop down the road. You'd left them on the kitchen counter where they could catch the morning sun and drench the small room in the scent of promises, and warnings.

(Roses will forever remain a sinister omen. She ruined that for you, but is apparently oblivious that flowers can mean more than one thing.)

You had cooked bacon every single morning that week to cover the scent, while they sat there glowing in the sun, and Hannah loved it. A luxury to her, opulent even. She doesn't have any idea what white roses have come to mean to you. Moira pressed on a smile and agreed about what a pleasant treat it was to have bacon everyday. You've never told her about the flowers, or the greenhouse, or Serena’s sickly preoccupation with both, but somehow she seems to suspect there’s more to the gift and your reaction than an amorous gesture.

The roses hadn't come with a card, just showed up with a knock on the door one afternoon a few months after the police had come to arrest Serena. You knew immediately who they were for, and who they were from. How she managed it, you'll never know, mostly because you haven't been allowed any contact whatsoever. Not a phone call, nor a video conference, not even any letters—hand-written or otherwise. It's been utter silence, and one you didn't realise you had no desire for contact until it happened.

Total separation. Except for the nine white roses with no card.

Nine was such a strange number that you went online to do a little research. Serena has always understood flowers, but you’d never bothered to think about anything except the traditional six or twelve red roses. Luke used to do that on Valentine’s Day: when you were dating it was six, when you got married it changed to a dozen. It wasn’t particularly creative, and it never had you scouring pages of defunct florist web pages from a decade ago trying to parse together what the hell he was attempting to say, not like Serena with her cryptic fucking white roses in strange numerical configurations.

She’s done this exactly three times now, and each time is more confounding than the last. You’d assumed she always used white since that was just the most abundant in Gilead, but here red was most common. 

First, there had been a bouquet of three in white and Rita's voice. _Mrs. Waterford picked it special_. 

For you. Picked it specially for you.

You hadn’t known the meaning then, and it’s probably better that you didn’t, because it would have been far more confusing than it already was. Three roses for three words: _I love you_. A traditional one-month anniversary gift. It makes even less sense now that you’ve seen this explanation. She didn’t know you, she hated you… but it had been just over one month since the Ceremony.

The next time, after you’d helped edit all those security reports and analyses, a single white rose. _My feelings are pure_. 

> _Early tradition used white roses as a symbol for true love, an association which would later become the hallmark of the red rose. In this sense, white represents unity, virtue, and the pureness of a new love._

Who knew Serena Joy Waterford was such a repressed, unwitting romantic? No wonder she had to stop leaving living trinkets in your bedroom, because Fred may have had no better of an understanding than you did, but you all knew enough that these flowers meant _something_.

Nine is something altogether strange and overwhelming when you stare at them on the counter in your kitchen. Too many, but still not enough to make you comfortable. It’s like the number of fingers she was missing when she let Nicole go. The number of fingers she was missing when she first came to your bedroom and you took control of her body, and she of your pleasure, a few days before the judgment from the Council came down that she would be punished for your writing on the wall. It’s an ugly number when you let yourself think about it. That’s not often.

The internet talks about nine roses and eternal love; it says, ‘ _I want to be together forever._ ’ Another says, ‘ _We’ll be together forever_.’ 

Much like the time in the Commander’s study when she said, “I won’t forget your help”, it sounds like a thinly-veiled threat. An ominous promise about something of which you have no choice and is beyond your control. Both are a luxury you can’t afford now, and you wished you’d had the forethought to spend your past freedoms more wisely.

The number nine, you learn, is about divine completeness, about finality of death, about spiritual gifts, about the choice between self and others, and the hour Christ died. It is the feminine spirit. It is the number of final judgment. All of those things are wrapped into a single digit number.

Your blood ran cold every time you saw those flowers on the windowsill, or when Hannah told you how pretty they were. Who was speaking to you: Serena the romantic or Serena the heretic facing Judgement Day? So, once again, you have no fucking clue what she’s trying to say to you.

When they began to rot and brown, petals shedding, you'd taken just one and dried it in the privacy of your bedroom. Just like that single rose she’d given to you before Nicole was born.

She used to share this tiny space with you. Now, there is only the dry and shrivelled reminder that she ever really existed. Sure, there's still a drawer full of her clothes in the wardrobe that you wear if you want something baggy and ill-fitting, and that terrible hot pepper sweatshirt is shoved to the back of the closet somewhere. 

(Maybe you'll pass it down to Nicole decades from now.)

Nicole's tiny bed is empty tonight as she wanted to have a sleepover with the big kids and you'd agreed, secretly seeing it as a trial run for a few months from now when you figure out the logistics. Hannah, although irritable at times, has been nothing but the best big sister you could ask of her, especially considering the history. The two boys of the Woodman's, Noah and Jacob, are younger, but docile and respectful and careful around the baby who toddles after them around the house.

It's just you and the dead rose. Quiet. Still. Almost dark.

The digital clock reads 12:39 AM in bright green LED. God, you _fucking_ _hate_ that clock. Its garish hue coats the small space in a slime of dull colour, elongating shadows where none should be. Sometimes you swear they dance, like demons and witches around a sacrifice. Maybe the house is haunted. Hannah has cried out about monsters at night, but you'd put it down to an overactive imagination and too much sugar before bed. After all, you've seen the real monsters and they're much more active during the light of day.

Tonight, it’d be easy to convince you that Hannah is right. 

The mattress creaks a little as you roll onto your back in an attempt not to stare at the walls and their living shadows.

There are footsteps up the stairs, and it's comforting that someone else is awake as well. Probably Erin—she's the night-owl of all of you. Or maybe she's an insomniac too, finding it impossible to close her eyes without the nightmares seeping in and destroying even the peace of the twilight before sleep.

It's like a horror movie, one of those shitty ones that would come out only on DVD featuring some B-list Hollywood actress and an incredibly low budget. The door opens slowly, just a crack. You'd set a nightlight up in the hallway so the kids could find their way to the bathroom, or a parent's bedroom in the middle of the night. (Gilead was pitch black at night. You can't stand it anymore. Maybe the nightlight is really for you.) Now it sneaks in as the silhouette of a person, a grown adult, looms at the entrance.

There are many times you've seen it; lingering, watching, silent in the door. That sense of uneasiness never truly went away.

“The fuck?” is all you can think to say, and at this point, honestly, you're not sure if you're talking to a real person or a ghastly hallucination. Is this what people mean when they talk about acid flashbacks?

Before your hand can find your phone, the light-switch snaps on, flooding the room with light, and she's standing there, like a dark ghost. Her clothes are charcoal grey, her hair loose and a mess, and there are deep bags under her eyes. How she's standing here, you're not entirely certain and it feels an awful lot like that time at Commander Prue's when she showed up out of fucking nowhere with no warning. For a moment, your eyes meet and she leans back to close the bedroom door before you can make a sound.

As if she's merely home after a late dinner, she tosses a black garbage bag in the corner and begins pulling the grey sweatshirt over her head, opening your drawers and brusquely searching for something big enough for her to wear. How entitled she always seems.

“Serena.”

You're still not convinced she's real. You've had dreams (perhaps nightmares) very similar to this over the past few weeks. It's as if she's gone deaf or something, because she completely ignores you and again, you're having the uncomfortable sensation that you've been here and done this already, played this game and lost. Her back is to you as she pulls off her t-shirt, slips out of her bra, and yanks one of your huge white tank tops over her head. Unless you have the best photographic memory in existence, she's not a figment of your imagination because the scars are all still there. Even in your most vivid dreams, that ancient evidence of Fred's predilection for leather belts never features. It doesn’t fit. You never let it in. Plausible deniability of the lives you had before. It’s permissible there, in your subconscious. In waking hours, your conscience would never allow it.

There may be a few new bruises, or that could just be a trick of the light. Her belly is bigger than before, of course. She is three months more pregnant.

Within a few moments, she's managed to find a particularly large pair of pajama pants as well and has slipped into them.

When she turns back around to you, it's too normal. Eerily familiar in how ordinary it appears, even down to the twitch of her fingers, the way she fiddles with the hem of her shirt. This is just another night in Toronto. You've done this with her too many times to count. Other than the fact you know she has just shown up in your bedroom after months of no contact and a much larger baby bump than she left with, everything is perfectly normal.

Finally, she moves, slowly settling down on the end of the bed and gazing over at you. Jesus, she looks tired and probably for good reason, but she doesn't seem very talkative at the moment.

“It's a long story,” she states before you can even ask. Her mutilated hand slowly glides over the tight skin of her own pregnant stomach.

Awkwardness is not unfamiliar territory for the two of you, and this appears to be no exception. Something in your chest is tight with want, you think. It hurts anyway, and the only possible solution you are considering is physically moving closer to her, but your muscles resist. There's something off about her, and in all honesty, you're not totally okay with the whole “Serena Joy Waterford of all fucking people is my... well, whatever she is.” No word is ever sufficient, and as an editor, that lack of applicable vocabulary should be humiliating, so you write it off as a limitation of the English language instead. 

There's probably a word for it in German. There's always a word in German. All the same, you've never been okay with it, cos there's a little voice that nags at the back of your head about how much you can't fucking stand her.

But it's a tiny voice, and it gets weaker each day. Especially when she touches you. 

You suppose that’s just how memory works, doesn’t it? You lose a little bit every day, until even the bad things get worn down, their once sharp edges becoming dull and soft. Blood-letting gives way to soft bruises, and eventually to nothing much at all. Just a ghost of a kiss, spectre of a pinch. It’s easier to live with that way, to just wear the edges down and put them aside. Old knives in a drawer somewhere.

But it doesn’t happen equally, or all at once. The good memories and even the neutral ones, the everyday occurrences, those ordinary and often mundane moments take on a sort of nostalgic flair, steeping them in a spirit they lacked in the beginning. Some of these become sharper, brighter, embroidered with meaning and endearing your own imaginings to your mind. It’s a clever, but cruel trick. No smoke and mirrors in sight.

Perhaps it’s just a mechanism of self-preservation but it’s this way with Serena. The uncomfortable memories, the violence and pain that once were immediate and real, fade into a murky grey netherworld. Meanwhile, the ordinary are imbued with more substance than they should have. You consume these new versions of the past like air itself. As you squint, the humdrum becomes the holy with the long passage of time, with her, and with the unrelenting longing.

Slowly, you inch out from under the blankets and slide over to where she sits, quietly, patiently. It's not the first time you've sat in silence, side-by-side, on a bed. It's sort of like a _thing_ of yours. A particular something that you just do. This time however, you don't reach for her hand. It's always you doing the comforting and asking and reaching out. Sometimes it would be nice for it to be the other way around. Maybe it's petty of you because you know she's a bit out of it, exhausted, and certainly she could use it, but if she won't open up and speak about why she's suddenly here in your bedroom at midnight, why should you?

You have a thousand questions about everything that's happened but she's unwilling to talk to you about it. In a sense, you're fine with the silence because you and Serena have always existed more between the things you don't say. Despite being two women whose entire existences prior to Gilead relied entirely on words, it was the quietness, the touches of skin on skin in the dark, the cold glares, the slow clench of a jaw or fist that became your lexicon. Beyond words. Outside them.

Nothing much has changed except the nature of the silence.

Her gaze shifts from a blank stare at the wall to your face, and there are the unshed tears that she's defiantly holding back, her lips set tightly. It's not the first time you've seen that look either. Uncomfortable nostalgia calls you back to that horrible house in Gilead. Serena never debased herself to ask for help or comfort, even if she came to you first. She would just stare at you with those pathetic, misty puppy dog eyes, cheeks sometimes covered with tears, hoping you’d make the first move, and every single time, you did. You would ask if she was okay, she'd play the silent pity card, and you'd move towards her. Perhaps that's just how you work, like magnets, you're inexorably attracted to her weakness just as she's attracted to your strength. How awful that would be if it were true.

She's _such_ a pain in the ass.

Again, like always, you attempt to resist but fail after a while. (She wins.) Rage suits her features so much better, not this pathetic, bumbling misery. With rage comes fire and she has enough to set the world alight, you think.

Maybe it's a subtle revenge but you don't take her hand, not this time. You reach out and glide your fingers lightly across the swell of her abdomen before resting your palm against her. You focus on the unborn fetus, not the woman herself. Something about it makes your skin crawl when you role-play this way, and you're mystified about how easily she could do this for months on end.

There are no prayers you want to recite, like she did when she first crawled into your bed at night, like a predator. Instead, you whisper, “Hello in there. How are you, Baby?” It's perfect. You ignore her completely and despite how much revulsion you feel inside your own body, you persevere. She's hurting while part of you gloats. Times like these make it clear you've never quite forgiven her for everything she's done to you, but you're pushed along like a furious little motor is driving you without your own control. Spite is quite the fuel.

The urge to violate and dehumanize her the way she did to you that night is overwhelming and bile rises in your throat, but you swallow heavily. This is how memories are lost. Again, you whisper only to the baby.

This is clearly not the homecoming she had expected. Well, you hadn't expected to be thrown against a wall and choked. Yeah, you haven't forgotten that either. _Tit for tat, Mrs. Waterford_. People seem to think you've forgotten all her little furies, all her open-handed slaps, her crushing grip on your wrists or your throat.

You have no religion left to make you feel guilty for this behaviour. _He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you._

But when Serena chokes out a stuttering breath, you know normal people don't require sacred texts to feel shame. When you raise your eyes to meet hers finally, the smug feeling inside dissipates because you'll never be as callous or as hard as she is. While guilt may not be forthcoming, regret is, especially when she takes your hand in hers to still your movements and her eyes plead with you, it makes you squeeze in return. Call and response. Your own strange Morse code. It’s much too late for saving souls. Unspoken words stick to your dry tongue and your only apology comes in the form of physical touch. A thumb stroke over her hand. That's all.

“Can we just sleep?” she asks, quietly, drawing in a shuddering breath slowly. The crinkle of icicles melting in the spring. Drip, drip, drip.

Nodding, you move towards the light-switch, and she doesn't even wait to crawl under the blankets, facing the wall. Something happened in that prison that has flayed off the calluses of the Serena Joy Waterford you knew.

The sickly green LED is the only thing you can see, but when you get into bed, it's a whirlwind of hands and feet and arms and legs and hair. Like a vice, she's wrapped around you, squeezing, but silent. Perhaps she's crying, but you can't actually tell because her face is buried against your neck, and her breathing is steady. It reminds you of that time, the first one, except neither of you are naked and this isn't during sex. But she's just shown up, in your bed in the middle of the night seeking comfort or forgiveness or whatever it is that she won't admit to. 

Instead of talking, she's just crushing the life out of you. A drawn and pitiful boa constrictor.

Even so, for the first night in almost three months, you sleep soundly enough to dream.

* * *

The sheets next to you are still warm when you wake, stretching an arm out to fill the empty space. Rolling your head into the pillow, you breathe deeply; it smells like her, and a flutter reverberates throughout your chest, almost unwelcome, but not quite. For a long minute, you merely lie there, taking in the silence of early morning before the children inevitably rise and the chaos begins anew, just like every day now, and the cooling mattress beside you.

The pipes knock and you know the tell-tale sound of hot water in the shower next door. Maybe you’ll be granted a few more minutes to yourself before the kids wake up, so you tiptoe down the hallway, and peek in. Nothing but the tiny little snores of sleeping tots. Perfect.

The bathroom is full of steam already by the time you inch the door open. It's wet, and hot, like a jungle without trees or that holiday you took with Luke, to Thailand before Hannah was born, where it was 100% humidity for seven days straight. Except, there it was vast beaches, towering palms, and the smell of street food along every road. Here, it’s almost like Gilead again: a tiny enclosure, claustrophobic, pressing down, suffocating and loud. But, as if to argue with your senses, there is the waft of berry-scented shampoo and that was never allowed there. The pajamas Serena borrowed are in a pile on the cold tiled floor, just soaking up condensing water vapour. _Gross_. She always fucking does this and it drives you crazy. What is honestly _so_ hard about just hanging them up, or placing them on the sink? Anywhere but the floor. It’s one of those things—people call them quirks like it’s cute, but it’s not, it’s irritating—that she does so contrary to everything else about her ordered and precise life.

“Hey,” you call out, just loud enough to be heard above the shower, but hopefully not enough to wake the kids.

“ _Shit,_ ” comes the response from behind the curtain and you know you’ve surprised her. “June?”

Stepping closer to the tub, you smirk even though nobody can see it. It’s entertaining enough to you. “Who else?”

The annoyed huff on the other side is all you need for your gratification; she always manages to amuse the shit out of you, especially when she’s not trying. Your fingers clench for a second, fighting off the urge that you can feel growing, ballooning up through your body. It’s been months. You can’t be expected to be some nun who remains just as stony and virginal as when she was gone. The warm air hits your bare skin as you pull the t-shirt over your head, wiggle out of your pants, and hang them both on the back of the door. The click of the lock as you turn it as quietly as possible makes your blood rise.

God, the water is hot as you climb in with her and the whole world seems to reset from last night. If she was awkward and aloof then, she’s the opposite now, with her body taking over your space so quickly you’ve barely had a chance to draw a full breath. Her mouth crashes down on yours, sucking all the life from you and fucking hell, it’s exactly the sort of homecoming she should have had last night. It takes nothing for her to push you back until you hiss as your bare skin hits cold tile, feeling the pressure of her naked body again, relief flooding through your veins. And arousal like a goddamn hurricane.

You’d forgotten momentarily how soft her skin is under your palms, against yours. There's the awkward presence of her pregnant stomach protruding where before you could fit flush together but otherwise nothing is very different because she still touches you exactly as she always has. Your fingers still dig into her flesh as if she’ll be taken away any moment, and while once that was a dream that you only entertained in your own head in that fucking attic, you’ve been there now, felt the reality of that emptiness. It’s not right, not to you anyway. Although most of America might disagree. Fuck them because right now, you’ve got more selfish plans as your hand moves between her legs. For the briefest moment, her knees buckle and she draws in a sharp breath. An arm sweeps out to brace herself against the wall and her other hand grips harder around your waist, so much that it may bruise a little. You don’t give a shit at this point.

“Fuck, _June_ ,” she squeezes out between clenched teeth as you move expertly attuned fingers over her clit. She’s already breathing hard, and you realise as much as you’ve been in some sort of suspended animation for the months she’s been gone, so has she and with pregnancy hormones on top of that. 

A quickie in the shower was always the stuff of those first few months of blind infatuation in a new relationship or completely unrealistic television soaps. In truth it’s too awkward and cold to be much fun… unless it’s like this, then it’s completely overwhelming.

Her teeth come down against your shoulder, trying to rein in the sounds you know she’s dying to make. It’s a guilty pleasure still, drawing those from her. She guards them so carefully, so restrained even now, even alone with you, and you think there’s probably some childhood thing or religious bullshit reason for her refusal. But still, occasionally, you’ve broken down those walls enough to make her scream your name. An unexpected prize, at first at least. Like putting a flag on the top of the mountain, on the moon, to stake claim. It’s happened much more than once, but loses none of its appeal. It’s not that hard when you know exactly where and how to touch her, and the way she reacts like a feral animal to your own noises. A little moan here and she’s gone, lost to your hands and mouth with no hope of redemption.

“Stop, stop, stop,” she whispers intently, shakily taking a step away and for a second, you’re actually worried but brush it off as paranoia. “I can’t.”

Okay, now you’re worried.

She shakes her head, and the lack of her heat makes the goosebumps swarm your skin from where you stand in confusion at her behaviour. There’s only one reason you can think of. “If this is about the baby—”

“No, no,” she says, a light laugh bubbling up as she braces herself against the wall again. “I don’t have the legs.” She motions to her baby bump. After a beat, her eyes twinkle, and then she reaches out for a towel, her hands shaking much like the rest of her limbs. “You go any further and I’m going to fall over.”

...

A small serpent of cold water glides down your back, just in the dip of your spine all the way from your wet hair. There’s hardly time to worry about it, until another and another join it on their journey. Your skin is so hot, thrumming, that it warms by the time the water droplets hit the bedsheets. Towels discarded, you finally get to sprawl across your sheets, waiting for her, glistening like some sort of dying star as she takes her time making her way to you. Two hands grasp hard at your legs and brusquely pull you to the edge of the mattress, just enough that your knees bend, splaying your legs open and inviting for her and you can hear her struggle for breath at the sight, and smell, and possibilities. It’s been so fucking long, and yet she dawdles almost, soaking up every overly extended moment as she slowly arranges herself around her own belly. The simple act in itself, even merely the pinch of her fingertips tight on your thighs, makes you wet with anticipation.

Serena is like nobody else when it comes to eating you out. Nobody. There’s a constant desperation to be as thorough, as dedicated, as enthusiastic, as fucking _good_ as she can possibly be. The ever-eager purist. That bit of perfectionism that was apparent in her painting, knitting, and impeccable wardrobe seems to spill over elsewhere like an oil, slick and incessant. You always knew there was some reason your body would warm on the rare occasions when you’d catch her with tendrils of hair coming loose from that austere bun she always wore in Gilead. A woman coming undone, in little rough shards. _Waiting_. Falling, slowly into another kind of scarlet woman. Even when you had Nick, if Serena was around, looking like that, there was something scratchy inside you that you never had been able to place until now.

Her mouth is flush against you before there’s a moment to prepare yourself and a louder than intended curse word slips out. _Shit. Don’t wake the kids_ , you scold yourself. You’ll never forgive yourself if you’re the reason this gift gets interrupted and you have to walk around in a half-aroused haze all day long. 

Her loose, damp hair falls against your legs, sending shivers of chills up your body but she ignores it all, her arms looped tightly over your thighs. There was a time when you thought you owned her when she’s like this, that you fooled yourself into believing this was control over her just because she’s the one on her knees, but it’s laughably not. You’re every bit as hungry. It’s your hips that have already begun to rock just slightly against her mouth as her tongue works in an intoxicating rhythm on your clit.

“ _Please_ ,” you manage to whisper, grabbing at her head. There’s no fear of her stopping of course but you beg all the same, not feeling the least bit of shame for how desperate you sound. You are, and there’s no point in hiding it from her when your body is moving of its own accord anyway. She makes these soft contented sounds when she does this, just every so often, and you had no idea how delirious it would make you the first time it happened. You’d thought you were hearing things but no, it was her, completely unaware. Her attentiveness is only paralleled by her sheer delight when she’s between your legs. Who would have guessed Serena Joy Waterford would find a new god to worship this way? Every little hum gives you another tiny rush. She’s praying at the altar of a false god. The golden Buddhas in Thailand are long gone, aren’t they?

You tilt your head back against the crumpled duvet, chest heaving, gripping the sheets with one hand, your other still tangled tightly in her hair, as you bite down with considerable force on your own lip. You have no idea what she sees, or feels, but she always knows exactly when to increase pressure, or speed. Maybe you’re an open book that’s easy to read, or maybe she’s just a really voracious reader. 

Unbidden, Aunt Lydia’s grating bark bounces in your head and you try to ignore it in favour of the sensation of pleasure coursing through your blood. It doesn’t work.

_“...You shall lie between the legs of the Commander’s wife. The two of you will become one flesh, one flower.”_

She’d said that about the Ceremony, about Wives and Handmaids. God, if only she knew how true that would be, you snicker to yourself, pulling Serena closer, feeling her tongue teasing in all the right places. Aunt Lydia certainly hadn’t anticipated all the ways you’d gladly lie between Serena’s legs, or your flesh and Serena’s love of all flowers coming into some unholy union like this. _Praised be, bitch_.

“Serena,” you draw out her name from deep in your chest, half-plea, half-growl, all burgeoning hunger. Her fingers tighten against your flesh in response. The first time, she left those small bruises, little half moons, stuck in the same phase, you’d looked down at your legs a day later in wonder, not recognising the source immediately. It didn’t hurt; if anything they were like when you were young and hickeys were a source of juvenile pride. These little marks on your thighs were your secret, something you owned, something she shared. She left them on you, maybe as a mark of possession, revenge. But they’re evidence of her loss of control, in the better way.

 _God_ , you’re so close.

And then she stops. You could fucking kill her and your fingers twist around damp locks of her hair but she wriggles free of your desperate clawing. Inching up onto your elbows, you glare down towards her kneeling on the floor and see the utter discomfort on her face and recognise the signs of cramps, or a kicking baby. Either one seems like a fairly reasonable excuse for her, but still, your heart beat is thumping like you’ve had too much cocaine and your skin is on fire. You need her. You need her _right fucking now._

For a second she breathes deeply, gripping at her belly before moving up to perch on the edge of the mattress with the most apologetic look you think she’s ever given you. Are those actual tears forming?

“Don’t worry about it,” you grumble as you crawl up to sit next to her, but your tone must seem dejected, or frustrated. Well, you are both and you’re definitely not trying to make her feel bad because you know what she’s going through all too well. 

It takes her a moment to breathe, blink away whatever thoughts she was having, and once again, her lips are against yours. Your taste is all over her. She pulls back just enough that her bottom lip grazes yours and there's a tingle that sputters across your skin at the light contact.

“I don’t want to stop,” she insists, almost choking on her own words, crashing her mouth against yours again, and a low groan sneaks up your throat. You don’t want her to either.

Moving back, your lips turn into a wry grin. “Lie down then.”

You do like being on top, always have.

And you’ve never seen her fall onto her back faster than she does right now, grabbing for you immediately as if you've just discovered fire. The second you lower yourself over her mouth, her tongue is diving in, picking up the same rhythm against your clit she’d interrupted minutes before. And back come those little hums of hers as you grind yourself down on her face, gyrating just enough to create even more friction. Braced against the headboard with one hand, your other one is gentler in her hair now, and you glance down at her with her eyes closed, just focusing intently on you with the slight furrow of her brow. 

_God_. 

Briefly, something warm tickles at the corners of your eyes but now isn’t the time for sentimentality, and certainly not crying.

Throwing your head back, breathing ragged and more frenzied, you’re feeling the pressure of an impending orgasm already. She moans under you and it’s barely more than you can handle at this point. Your arms fall to brace yourself as the trembling begins. Maybe you should feel bad about how forcefully you’re pushing against her face but she doesn’t seem to mind at all, she never has.

Everything is hot, wet, tingling, like you’re hanging perilously onto the edge of a tall cliff. Subtle passing bursts of warmth begin deep inside you. It’s that fear—no, the knowledge that you’re about to fall that makes it even more exhilarating. There’s no point in trying to restrain the eager pants erupting from you. You’re going to fucking explode any second. The entire world has narrowed to this, you and her, your goddamn clit and her perfect tongue. She’s all you can think about, encompassed by the smell of her arousal and yours, mingling, humid and sticking to every inch of skin. Her hands are on you too, but all you want is her mouth.

If she could say your name right now, you’d fall apart but you’re probably suffocating her just a little. _Who fucking cares_ , part of you screams.

“Please, fuck,” you mumble nearly unintelligibly as the longing flare sweeps out from where she is furiously focused. Again, and again, each time building up until finally you cry out, unintentionally loud in the peace of the small bedroom. You can’t fucking help it, because this is overwhelming in its intensity and your thoughts are completely ignorant of the rest of the household. All you sense is fire, licking every nerve until you shake. Even your normally strong thighs are trembling and spasming, and it’s like falling and flying and dying and being born again all at once. Over the mountains, and under the stars. Alive.

The world, your world becomes a single white dot. Everything else is eclipsed.

It feels like you come for hours.

Finally, when you feel in basic control of your body again, you flop down on the mattress next to her, breathless still as the thin sheen of sweat on your skin falls victim to the cool air of the room. A self-satisfied smile pulls at the corners of her mouth, still wet with you. Her head swivels towards you, and there’s an embarrassing, come-drunk giggle that seems to escape from you at the sight of her, gazing at you in that way. You feel like you could be floating right now, and wouldn’t know any better, that’s how light everything feels.

After so long, the weight has dissipated into the quiet air and dim pink glow of dawning light. The hate has been released, at least for these few quiet minutes. She grins even wider seeing your contented face and again, warmth prickles at your eyes, unbidden and unwanted and you’re on the cusp of crying. You laugh again at the sheer idiocy of your body’s reaction, propping up to kiss her instead, softly this time and tasting yourself all over her. A wisp of a sigh escapes from her as you move a hand over her body, up her thigh, over the hump of her abdomen, and across her peaked nipple, until you come to rest, cradling her face. How pathetic that you actually missed her this much; you hadn’t even realised it when she was gone.

There’s a whining howl from down the hall, past the closed door that shields you both from the real world. It’s Hannah, complaining about something or other. They’re awake.

Reality is yours again.

* * *

Alive in a different way, the kitchen is loud, borderline chaotic as the kids prepare for breakfast and school. Four children all vying for attention and food, all at the same time, makes your head ache sometimes. Of course you love them, but some days—just today really—you wish they’d be calm, quiet, and well-behaved. All you ask for is an hour to soak in the glow of those post-coital minutes before you hear their morning yells. 

When you enter the room, it’s stuffy and the smell of burnt toast, instant coffee, tinned fish, and peanut butter permeates the air in a cacophony of sensory overload. On the floor is a puddle of milk, complete with soggy Alpha-Bits. There are eight grubby little hands reaching, and fiddling, and picking, and getting shoved into noses and mouths, and there’s Serena with her back to the room, methodically making a tower of tuna sandwiches for everyone’s lunches. 

It’s fucking ridiculous, the way your whole body shifts into some other universe populated only by your worst decisions. The crowning achievement of those is your current situation, with a certain tall, blonde war criminal who has just slapped a heavily-mayoed slice of bread over some tuna fish. The hairs on the back of your neck raise, but there’s an insistent tremor in your hands, and abdomen, as if you’re being dragged from safety into somewhere new.

Patting Hannah quickly on the head as you pass, the grin on your face grows even bigger, so much that you wonder if it’ll ever stop. It’s only the back of Serena’s blonde head and you can’t fucking help yourself from mooning like a goddamn idiot. Your hands slide over her waist, and it feels right.

“Hey,” you whisper, pressing up against her back and leaving a soft kiss between her bare shoulder blades. This is so unlike you. Well, it’s not, but it is with _her_. That damn orgasm from earlier obviously is still intoxicating you with some mushy shit that is unfamiliar to your established dynamic. 

“Hey,” she murmurs back, still smearing tuna onto bread.

The universe only wants this moment of peace to be brief because no sooner than you settle your arms around her does Moira come barrelling into the room with loud greetings to all the children before making a beeline to the coffee maker. You can’t help it, your arms aren’t even yours anymore as they tighten.

“Morning, Moira.” You don’t mean to sound so smug, but it’s difficult when Serena's right here, with the smell of sweat and morning sex still lingering very lightly on her skin, although maybe that’s only your imagination. You don't say anything else, but as your hands spread possessively over her waist that’s enough of a signal.

“Not again,” comes the irritated sigh, but behind it there’s something of wonder at how she’s here, in the kitchen, making Moira a damn sandwich for lunch. Again. Moira immediately starts humming a familiar camp song, that one about the cat that everyone was trying to kill. Or kept coming back, from each deathly situation. Hannah used to make you turn it off when it would come on her children’s song compilations because it scared her. Jacob starts singing along, off-key but with typical childish gusto.

_The cat came back, they thought she was a goner, but the cat came back, she just wouldn't stay away._

Instead of arguing and ruining this post-orgasmic glow that seems to have permeated your entire morning, you slide a hand under the hem of her tank top, and yeah, it’s pretty hoggish actually but she _is_ yours, and she’s here, and why shouldn’t you? The sooner Moira just accepts that, the sooner this household can calm the fuck down.

Your best friend does very little except arch an eyebrow at your very blatant attempt at a warning, and bites her lip. 

“Well, at least now I know why I heard all that moaning at insane o’clock in the morning,” she smirks, trying to make you as unhappy and uncomfortable as she clearly is at this horrifying development.

“What moaning?” Of course, Hannah would pick up on _that_ , of all the noise in the room right now. Her question is so innocent, with a hint of fear, and you clench your jaw to repress the annoyance you have for Moira at the moment.

You could kill her. 

It’s all a game to her but you’re the one who is now going to have to both dodge answering truthfully and convince your eldest daughter that, no, there are no ghosts in the upstairs hallway. She’s not a stupid child and sex ed will come soon enough. You’d just rather it wasn’t over peanut butter toast and Alphabits, and specifically not about the mind-blowing lesbian sex you’re currently having with the reincarnation of Elena Ceausescu. At least, a best friend should give you some time to have a cup of coffee first before throwing an insatiably inquisitive child your way.

Serena turns, just enough to see you with an arched eyebrow.

Your eyes narrow, and you pinch her, just a little, just enough, before moving towards the coffee maker finally. You want to wipe those smug, stupid grins off both their faces. Sometimes you wonder how Serena and Moira aren’t better friends, until you remember, well, _Gilead_. “None, Banana. There was nothing. Your Auntie Moira has crazy dreams that she thinks are real sometimes.”

Moira slinks across the room to you, sidles right up close and gets in your ear. “And here I was thinking you’d just got a new toy,” she whispers, low enough that the children can’t hear. Thank God. The last thing you need is Hannah asking what toy, why can’t I have one, where is it, can I play with it?

With a shake of your head, you hold the steaming mug out in her direction. “One more word, and I swear…” A bit of coffee slops over the rim of the mug in her general direction.

Nicole screeches loudly for her mama, and Serena’s by her side, leaving the leaning tower of tuna in the lurch for the moment. 

The whole scene, it’s _right_. Your kids are happy, healthy, smiling and thriving. Their friends-turned-roommates are just the same. You can sense your best friend, the reason you maintained hope for so long, beside you, quietly sipping her own coffee as you wait for the next inevitable bullshit remark from her. And, Serena, whatever she is to you if not merely the mother of your youngest baby girl, is wiping a smear of peanut butter and honey from Nicole’s face, and hands, and hair. It’s so fucking domestic, and completely the opposite of Gilead. 

It’s the opposite of anything you’d ever expected, and maybe that’s what it needs to be.

* * *

Serena says sorry. 

To you, specifically. It’s out of the blue as you’re both sitting at the dinner table, finishing the last of your spaghetti. The kids have eaten and are playing too loudly in the living room, with John Woodman watching over them. Occasionally his booming voice calls for one of his boys to stop teasing the girls, but otherwise, you and Serena are almost in a different world. When she says it, you have to ask her to repeat herself because you’re fairly certain she didn’t actually just say what you heard.

She does, and it’s exactly what you had heard the first time. She’s never apologised to you before, not like this. Not so pointedly, and not about the events of and in Gilead specifically. Sure, she’s offered casual apologies for various things that have happened between you two here. But not once has she mentioned or even hinted at Gilead. Either she pretends it never happened, or she staunchly refuses to engage in any consideration that she may have been at fault for anything. For so long, you’d considered her incapable of even admitting she’d done anything wrong, that entire time. She’s particularly apt at stubborn denial and justifying every nasty thought and action, excusing and diminishing the effects of her behaviour. Serena is a proud woman, and one that hates to admit she’s wrong, or at fault, especially. There were even flashes where you doubted she could even feel empathy for anything other than infant children. 

What the hell happened to her in that prison?

Torture or therapy, which was it? Maybe both. The greening bruises on her skin would imply at least the former. The shaking in her voice as the words wiggle out would imply the latter.

For a long minute, you revert to a common practice you’ve used against her, over and over. You do nothing but stare at her, offering no words of acknowledgment, and it’s always made her twitch. Her jaw clenches, her eyes shift uncomfortably, she sucks in her bottom lip every so often. There’s a tiny, almost imperceptible jerk of her head, a flinch really, but she puts her nose a little bit higher in the air afterwards, as if poise will erase the uneasiness in her body. Every single one of Serena’s weaknesses is known to you, and you can read her discomforted, evasive tells like a book. Her poker face is appallingly bad.

If they’d wanted to torture her, why didn’t they just recruit you?

The blank gaze, hardened but cool, that you pass to her has always been your second-best weapon against her. She balks. 

Chewing slowly on your last bite of pasta, you pretend to be considering what she's said. There's nothing to think about really, but this is your game to win, as always. Finally, you sigh as the chair scratches against the kitchen tile when you push away from the table. "Okay."

 _You're never forgiven_ , part of your most animal brain screeches. Instead, you walk to the sink and toss the plate into it. Loudly. The clink of utensils echoes in the kitchen as her footsteps grow closer.

This is her thing, the crowding of your space, overbearing and looming over you when she has no words in order to intimidate you into submission. Unfortunate perhaps that the only thing her vague domineering accomplishes anymore is turning you on. Unfortunate for her, anyway. For you, you're quite amused by it all, if you're honest.

Her plate joins yours under the stream of hot water. Such a shrewd woman could do a lot better, in your modest opinion. This is merely grade-school level intimidation, the stuff of playground bullies, and really, it’s morosely funny that the first thing she does after apologising is testily demand you accept it.

Sometimes you wonder if Serena is really that smart at all, or if she's just been lucky with her timing thus far in life.

So, of course, you do the one thing guaranteed to infuriate her further: ignore her pathetic attempts at getting a reaction while trying desperately not to let on how much fun you're having at her expense. She's so damn easy. She was easy back when she came crying to you in the darkness of Gilead and she’s easy now. Sometimes you think you know Serena Joy even better than you know yourself.

Briefly, the air prickles, like moments before a thunderstorm hits. Buzzing. Pulsating. A zap in the distance, beyond a darkened treeline.

Just as quickly it fades however, and it's not until you feel her lips against the shell of your ear, then the delicate skin behind it that you realise she's given into you. Immediately your hands brace against the edge of the sink, and you head lolls to the side, smoothly like warmed taffy. The world fades to a dull sort of ochre behind your eyelids as her mouth travels down your neck, just enough. 

"You don't have to forgive me," is all she says, as if you were actually considering it. "I just wanted you to know."

There’s something bulbous and light in your heart, a helium balloon released into a summer sky or a childhood memory. Long before, back when you were barely past the second grade, your mother had taught you how to ride a bike with no training wheels and one day you rode over a nail, the sound, the feeling. That gentle hiss as the tire grew softer and softer. That's the way your body feels now. _Yielding_. Not even realising you’d needed to hear her say those words, it’s taken a minute for it to sink in as real. And you’re actually relieved, far more than you expected. You've won. She really is that easy.

As you turn around, your lips find hers easily, moving with determination against her. Without any sort of permission on your part, something inside of you bubbles up, and crashes violently against your protective defences. 

"I do forgive—," and it doesn't sound like your own voice at all, probably because it isn't what you feel at all. You don’t forgive her, not really. But, the sounds that arise from your own lungs are breathy, alien, trembling, and needy as you push your mouth harder against her waiting kisses. Her hands grasp at your hair, your face.

Who were you calling easy again? Because it sure seems like she's won this round after all. 

* * *

“Great, June. You’ve made your point.” Moira sinks into the sofa cushions, crossing her arms. 

It’s been like this for almost twenty minutes; since the moment you tossed the letter onto the table and your nosy best friend had snatched it up. They—the joint Canadian and American governments—want you to come in for a conversation, which is a nice way of saying interrogation probably, about Serena, about what she’s done in Gilead. They’re on a witch hunt, even after having her in custody for weeks on end. 

“What point?” Yeah, you know what she’s getting at but calling her out like this has always worked in the past. This isn’t some grand political statement, or some indictment of values. Just like with Nick, you’re with Serena because it’s about _you_. It feels good. It makes _you_ feel good. And Serena’s the only goddamn person here that makes you feel slightly less misunderstood, less lonely, more alive—especially when Moira behaves like this. Serena sees that gaping hole that resides in the center of your heart, all bloody and raw around the edges, and when she plays with your hair or puts her tongue in your mouth, or elsewhere, or lets you steal the duvet in the middle of the night, you can hear the echo that says, “I have a matching one.” Exactly the same size, like puzzle pieces clicking into place. The loose bits that knock around in the wind, like loose tiles on the roof of an old house, they’re the same. You’re built of the same stuff.

Part of you feels sad, or guilty really, that Moira can’t share that with you. Part of you is disgusted sometimes when you roll over in the morning, and it’s Serena sleeping next to you and not Luke or Nick. You’re ashamed at the weakness her presence relays to the world, about how pathetic you’ve become that of all the people possible, it’s her. There’s a dreary grey film that clings to everything that you and Serena are together, like a dirty car window after a long, dusty summer, or the translucent scum on a puddle, where your reflection distorts, where you look for yourself in it but can’t quite make out the details of what made you _you_ in the first place. 

Once, in the first posting—the one you never talk about because, comparatively speaking, it was especially dull—you’d stopped in front of a shop window, just long enough to peer at yourself in the glass. Not at the pink and blue knitwear on faceless dolls the size Hannah was when you’d last seen her. Red cloak, white bonnet, pale face, dark eye bags, slouched shoulders. Just sullen shades of white, pink, and red. Who was that girl anyway? 

That never changed, not the entire time you were in Gilead—not until it did. Nick didn’t give you your reflection back; you’d stolen it with his help. And every time you caught his eye, you saw what you used to be, what you were in his apartment, who you were underneath the red wool facade. You loved what you had seen through him.

Later, after Nick, there was a blue bedroom, with soft linens where once you'd only had rough sheets under your naked body. _Luxury_. You'd seen more of her than yourself those times. But, as always, things warp, they change. They mutate.

Serena’s vanity mirror was not something you were meant to look at, but neither was her naked body, the white and red scars across her back, or the way she throws her head back, gasping, when you slide your fingers into the coarse curls between her legs. 

In the dying glow of her private fireplace, you’d crawled from her bed, wandering the rooms that once seemed as vast and unknown as the night sky out the window. You only knew the doorway and her bed, and all the floorboards in between those two points. Sure, there was a full-length mirror on her wardrobe but that had always been avoided. There was a whole other world beyond that, and you padded through the doorway into her powder room, towards an elegant vanity, with everything in its proper place. The small lamp you switched on did little to brighten the space, but that was probably for the better. There was something comforting about the shifting and imposing shadows in the Waterford house, like hidden doorways of another world. 

Your reflection then seemed almost normal, almost real, as you had stared at the person there, hugging another woman’s light blue nightgown to your chest in some pointless show of modesty for nobody at all. But still the flicker in your own eyes was that of a stranger, something that grew inside you, festered in this darkness. One of those fucked up fish that lives at the bottom of the ocean with the little glow-in-the-dark dangling lure, that’s what you saw. 

Something ugly. Something alive where nothing should survive. Something lying in wait, predatory. 

When Serena had crept up behind you, a throw blanket wrapped around her body that only minutes before had been undulating under yours, you recall cringing. She was witnessing your pathetic self reflection and there'd been a quiet shame that seeped over your face at being caught here, doing nothing more than considering yourself in her mirror. 

She had said nothing, watching you watching her in the golden reflection. Her eyes flickered then also, much too similar to what you'd just seen in yourself. 

Something alive where nothing should survive. 

That was the first time she touched you, casually, intimately, just for the pure sake of it. You remember your initial flinch as her fingers made contact with your loose blonde hair, somehow expecting the worst. But it was just a few strokes, before she ran her fingers lightly down your bare arm. Hunting. Pleading. Drawing you out of the depths and back into her bed had taken no effort at all.

The blue linen nightgown of hers fell from your shoulders, blue like those grotesque fish in biology class videos, as you slipped back under her duvet. Back and forth, the bait and the prey. You could never tell who was who.

There was so much blackness there, everyday, in Gilead. Cold and dark, silent and lonely. Then there was this, a tiny speck of light, whether it was a ploy or a lure, it didn't matter because it worked every time. 

Like you had told Eden once: in this world, you grab love wherever you can find it, even if it's dangling right above a predator's jaws. 

Moira should understand that, surely. There's no melodrama; it's life or death on the ocean floor.

But that was then. They all say Canada is different, that it’s not Gilead, that you’re free here. 

(What a fucking lie.)

"Look, you win, okay?" Moira says to you, exasperated again at your stubborn reluctance to name Serena as your enemy. “But you know, when this all sorts itself out, you’re gonna have to testify against her. They _will_ make you, whether you want to or not.” 

Moira is very matter-of-fact when she speaks about hypotheticals and the future. It’s like she knows something nobody else does and you wish that just once—just for one _fucking_ moment—you could share the same certainty. Frankly, you have no idea what you’re supposed to say to a room full of people that weren’t even there.

What crimes? _What sins? What sins was she hiding?_

You can speak to the abuse, to the rape, to the same things every single person in power inflicted on those below them in that cesspool of malicious faithfulness. You could testify about what it felt like to have her hold you down while her husband raped you, or to how it felt to hear him scream that it was her idea. But that’s all hearsay, isn’t it? You’ve never discussed that with her, and you really don’t want to. Often, the best way to survive Gilead was to ignore the ugly truths about human beings, especially those closest to you. It was a different plane of existence, really, where everybody did awful things. Every single person was horrible in one way or another, because living a lie just has that diseased effect on humanity.

The Serena that handed you a pen, that gave away Nicole, that slid her hands all over your body under the cover of night, the woman that got you and your daughter out and back here to reunite with your friends and family, she’s _not_ the same person. You’re not Offred, and she isn’t Mrs. Waterford. Those were roles to survive, to prevent yourselves from shattering into a million pieces.

Or so you tell yourself, every day, with the cool detachment of someone who has left everything in the past, long ago.

There are so many boxes you'd rather never unpack again.

What else could they possibly need you to say in court? She’s never confessed to anything more but Moira seems convinced she’s a war criminal on the level of Josef Mengele or Rudolf Hess. After all, she was the Wife of one of the founding members of Gilead; she was an anti-rights activist. You want to say you have no problem testifying against her for what she’s done to you, but there’s a doubt that burrows into your veins, like heroin, like poison.

God, she fucking deserves every shitty thing that is coming her way, you know that just as well as anybody else. You understand that. Yet it’s become more and more difficult to accept it.

“Why don’t you testify if you know so much?” You’re snappy and defensive, but you can’t help it because when you think about Serena now, something in your chest tightens and you see the woman in your bed every night, the mother to one of your daughters, the only person you trust on the planet to see you exactly as you are, angry, ugly black spots and all. She lives an almost identical nightmare every day because her memories and yours overlap so fucking much. Her very existence overlaps with yours so fucking much.

“Are you in love with her or something?” Moira sounds incredulous, if a little concerned. It has the lilt of a hopeful joke, but a heavy tone lurks behind the question.

You scoff loudly, forcing a tight grin almost before she's finished speaking. “Don't be stupid.” 

It almost sounds like the truth, even to you. You're not in love with Serena Joy Waterford in _any_ universe, yet your skin has stopped crawling when you consider the possibility of the idea. There's no point in admitting that little tidbit to Moira at this point because you're not looking for a fight. You've spent almost two years defending this fucked up thing with Serena to everyone else, and more so to yourself. Not a single person has ever understood it.

"Me, stupid?" Moira stares at you, carefully, like you're a poem she doesn't quite understand, and leans forwards. “Are you actually lying to me?”

“No!” Another laugh, even more forced than before.

Okay, sure. You know Serena is in love with you. Of all the awful, fucked up things in the world, you know that for certain, even if she's never said the words. It's very clear what love looks like on her now that you've seen it; it wasn't entirely alien because you'd seen the way she gazed at Nicole even as you were the one breastfeeding her, how she gently cared for her. There was the capacity within her. Every single time she looks at you, you can see it all over her face and it's fucking terrifying. It was so much easier—so much _safer for everyone—_ when it was just sex, power games, and escapism.

It's not difficult to tell exactly what Moira is thinking.

“I honestly can't believe you sometimes,” she snorts. “You do realise that there are literally _thousands_ of other people out there, right? Ones that aren’t Wives from Gilead?”

Your jaw stiffens and you know where this is going. Something about the insinuation makes you uncomfortable, like she's your disapproving father. “Don't,” you warn slowly. This isn't about Luke. Not anymore, but Moira doesn't seem like she's ever going to let you forget it. It's her little crusade, and if it gets Serena out of everyone's lives, all the better for her.

“I'm just saying,” She shrugs, her eyes narrowing.

“I know exactly what you're saying.”

Leaning back in the chair, she crosses her arms. “Well, then, what’s the issue? You don’t love her, she’s a demon, and you have literally no responsibility towards her at all; we all hate her. Remind me why she’s still here.”

Before you have a chance to argue, she continues. “Oh, right. The pussy thing.”

“ _Stop_.”

“What?” She knows exactly what you don’t want to hear, and it’s exactly what she’s saying. There have been enough examples of Moira’s stupid smirks in the morning, the taunts and teasing, and pointed looks she makes between you and Serena. 

And, really, you’ve confided in her, told her some dirty details about how it all feels, and how much you fucking can’t get enough, how it’s seriously the best goddamn sex you’ve ever had—especially now that you’re free. One night when Serena had been gone and after you’d received those fucking roses, you’d gone to Moira’s bedroom, sat on the end of her bed like old college times, and poured your insecurities and confusions out about what your life meant. You admitted to her—and only ever her—that you never expected anything with Serena to follow you here, but that time, at her apartment when you’d both had too much wine and loneliness, it finally wasn’t about reclaiming a fucking thing from Gilead. It wasn’t about revenge.

It wasn’t running from, it was running towards. 

And that had scared the shit out of you, but made you crave it even more. She’s slithered into your veins, latching onto every cell in your body and you can’t shake her free. Moira—your best friend in the world—refuses to understand why, even if she now tolerates Serena’s presence because she knows better than to give you an ultimatum. 

“She makes your clit happy.”

It would be so easy to smack her right now but you press your lips together and try to glare seriously at her and she laughs. With a reluctant nod and a long sigh, you agree as you try not to laugh with her, “She does.”

Will she ever accept that Serena makes you something vaguely resembling happy too, like, everywhere? It’s really not just the sex anymore. Despite every single thing that is wrong with that equation, it’s become an inevitable truth. Of course, under it all, she occasionally gives you chills, and a scent or sound will remind you of the dark parts of your past with her. The paralysing rage you’ve always felt towards her still lives somewhere inside, deeper than before and not as toxic, but it’s there. Even with all of that sticky, acidic history, now when you see her, it’s like you’re seeing a different person, and you seek her presence.

There’s no explaining anything to Serena. Not because she doesn’t want to hear it, but because she’s lived it just the same as you, and of all the people alive on the entire planet, it’s her that knows best. There’s a soft comfort in never having to go into detail about why something sets you on edge, because often, she’ll take a moment and it’ll hit her too. She’ll look at you with those blue eyes and the language of memory is perfectly understood. She touches you knowing exactly where it hurts, where to avoid, where the ghost of bruise still remains even after all these years, and where she once left them on you. You know the story behind every single scar on her body and she never has to relieve that. At night, her arms hold you in bed, her lips float over your skin, and you still whisper about books in the darkness.

When she gazes at Nicole, she doesn’t see a rape baby or the blinding green jealousy of another lover’s existence. There’s only Nicole, your daughter. Gilead hasn’t touched that.

_Shit._

You are such a great fucking liar, even Moira believes you.

“You know there’s more to relationships, even ones after Gilead, than just great sex, right?” It may be said as a joke but the look on Moira’s face is pure concern. Her dark eyes are soft, gentle, pleading desperately, and her hand reaches out to take yours. There’s a life beyond the damage caused by Gilead, caused by the very same woman who shares your bed in a strange, ambiguously masochistic partnership.

Another scoff erupts from your throat, as if she's forgotten you did have a very happy marriage once and you know how to maintain healthy adult relationships. “I know that.” You pray it comes off as flippant as you need it to because if she could see the truth, you’re not certain your friendship would survive. 

As if it wasn't bad enough lying to everyone for months on end, and especially to Luke, but continuing the lie now seems vulgar. Perhaps Serena has rubbed off on you a little too much because this is Moira, your Moira, probably one of the only reasons you are still even alive. She was your hope: _Moira got out_. _Moira got out_. _Moira got out_. The mantra you recited every time Gilead dug its venomous fangs into you a little more. So, you can’t tell her the whole truth and allow Serena to destroy yet another relationship. It’s not fair; you shouldn’t have to fucking choose.

A thundering of feet comes closer as the front door swings open abruptly and four children come pouring in, winter boots and hats and all. An exasperated voice is following them, shouting instructions to kick off the snow before stomping around the living room. They’re all tearing at their footwear, throwing coats and snow-caked mittens on the floor, yelling and laughing as Nicole struggles out of her own coat until Hannah assists her. It’s your family, and it’s times like this that make your entire heart swell with love and gratitude that you’ve been given this chance again.

The boys storm off into the kitchen, and Hannah is hot on their heels, practically ignoring you in her hurry. Nicole whines impatiently as Serena unlaces her snowboots and Moira is studying them both, then squinting at you. 

Owls often wait, and watch.

As Nicole waddles her little toddler body unsteadily in the wake of her older sister and the cacophony of laughter coming from the kitchen, you smile. For a moment, you watch Serena wriggling awkwardly out of her winter coat with that big belly of hers and recall when you were pregnant with Hannah. It’s so familiar. 

_You do realise that there are literally thousands of other people out there, right?_ Moira’s voice echoes from just a few minutes ago. You do nothing but stare blankly at the sight of her, performing such mundane tasks: taking off her coat, lining up four pairs of little snowboots against the wall, gathering up mittens and hats, looping her scarf over the hook and then cursing loudly to herself when it slips off and falls to the floor, laboriously bending over to pick it back up.

You don't want those thousands of other people.

It’s still just Serena, the same woman Moira considers a war criminal, the same one that did all those terrible things. God, it fucking kills you. Something hurts, like a nail gun in your chest.

This is not Serena Joy Waterford, Wife of Commander Fred Waterford, founder of Gilead. Fuck all that testifying shit. Since when could you of all people be so coldly responsible for taking a woman from her children? Isn’t that what you’d spent years railing against? Aren’t you better than that? The whole eye for an eye thing was so very Biblical and basing a system of law on the Old Testament was the entire problem with Gilead in the first place. If it's taught you anything, it's that nobody should be able to punish a woman by using her children as leverage.

Your own mother had never cared for organized religion in basically any form but she had always scoffed about vengeance. The sound of her voice in your head may have faded with time, but you still remember her reciting Bible verses at a rally once, when you were a child. She was shouting down some Christian extremists by throwing their Jesus’ words back at them.

_An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also._

Her voice was so certain, so clear, and it rings in your ears now, especially as you look over the pregnant swell of Serena’s stomach while Hannah squeals gleefully in the other room. You know the exact torture she’ll experience to have that baby ripped from her.

You can’t. That’s not you.

You refuse to let Gilead win this time. They will not take any more of your soul from you, and if that means Serena Joy Waterford—the woman who made your life a literal living Hell for years—gets to live, gets to raise her children, gets to have some semblance of manufactured happiness, so be it. _Fuck Gilead, and fuck the Old Testament._

You're better than that; you’re better than _them_.

She’s looking at you know, a crinkle of concern on her brow because you haven’t said a word, just stared dumbly at her since she entered the room.

“Are you okay?” Unsteadiness laces her words, like she’s expecting some terrible news. Over your shoulder, you can hear Moira snort and Serena’s gaze darts back and forth between you and her, as if you’ve got some nasty secret you’re refusing to share with her. Well, you do. You and Moira will never be like you and Serena, and it works the other way too.

Nodding adamantly, and flashing Moira the finger, you give her a smile and hope it’s reassuring. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” 

Okay, maybe part of your refusal to testify (if and when the opportunity is provided) is selfish as fuck. She’s yours now, and this shit? The way she’s gazing at you, her cheeks red from the cold, it makes you feel a hundred times better being in Canada than booze or Luke or group therapy ever did. 

You may not love her, but you definitely love this feeling. That should be enough.


	2. not quite an ultimatum

In Gilead, mere touch was a commodity bestowed upon the very few. Only the most privileged and highest ranked could afford it with any sort of normalcy, in the way it was before the Sons took over. A hand on the small of another's back, a brush of a kiss on the cheek, maybe at best a firm handshake. Honest affection? Well now, that was too high a price for most. Even Wives were left starving for it, as you know better than most. God forbid there was ever a touch of skin on skin outside the Ceremony, for Commanders, Wives, or Econopeople. There was little known about what happens inside the tiny apartments of Econopeople, of couples who had once been free to express their love in public, and in private. It was impossible to know exactly where and when an Eye would emerge and what surveillance was already in place, even in a private bedroom. In the mansions you’d been privy to, there was nothing but inhumane isolation, a consistently effective tactic of mind-control and behaviour modification.

Even when she inarguably loathed you, Serena had taken any opportunity she could find to press her fingers against you in whatever ways possible, to dust her lips across your skin, to crowd into your space so close that it was like her breath and heat were reaching out, caressing you—if you could describe her calculated intimidation so gently and intimately. Always, it was under the guise of gratitude or faithfulness to a vengeful God. 

Her nearness was not accidental, though perhaps occasionally to her it was incidental and unplanned. The way she pushed into your space any chance she got was simply a symptom of her unbearable quarantine from humanity. Sometimes, only sometimes, you think her furious violence was a cry for attention, like they say about childhood bullies, but you squash those thoughts quickly because there has never been any justification that holds weight for that. It’s a dangerous ride to hop on, the way of excusing such behaviour. You don't have to justify her abuse to forgive it, if that's possible.

Just box it up, pack it away someplace, and forget about it. That's as good as forgiveness, isn't it?

A therapist may balk at that method for self-preservation but it seems to be working just fine for you and her.

Still, you can feel the spectre of that starvation even now, in the way Serena latches on too tightly when she pulls you in, the way your lips bruise hers occasionally with the force, the way you curl into each other so desperately in the middle of the night, the way your tears or hers coat the pillows come morning. The hunger has never truly subsided, like Gilead took a bite out of you all and it’ll never grow back. Alongside your heart is another wound, hidden in the shadows.

Unlike words, touch doesn’t lie. That’s perhaps why Gilead made it so scarce, to freeze it out of women’s lives, and warp it into the real original sin.

There was no way to lie when she was drifting her fingers over your skin, or gripped your arm too tightly, or shocked with a slap, or as you took her hand and felt its tremble. Despite her imposing stature, she is such a fragile little thing in an obtuse body. A false face presented to the world. You are a soft thing too, hidden inside a fortress of earnest self-preservation. It’s what the world has made of you; it’s what Gilead has made you both. It only follows that touch—the only way you’re both unable to lie—is your most significant form of communication. 

She would lie if she could, that much isn’t even debatable. Honesty and Serena Joy have been reluctant cellmates most of the time you’ve known her. But you can still feel the way she touched your swollen belly in front of the fire, in her sitting room. The way it was pleading and confused and her face crumpled just enough to let you know that she wasn’t feeling what she should. The warmth of her palm against your nightdress, and her hand under yours. You’d tried to lie too, of course. But the longer you held her hand in place, the better it felt until you forced yourself to pull back as she dove into the idea of a baby inside you. That was honesty. Fucking finally. 

Everybody needs validation. It's just the human condition. Serena has never been any exception to that pathetic rule, and you knew it shortly after you fell pregnant. It had taken a long journey to understand some of that demonic energy that pulsed around the house, and where in fact its origins lay. She'd been such a different person after you'd fallen, bleeding the new life out, in her dark garden for Nick to find. Her touches soft, permission asked, needlessly doting, and seeking your approval. That goddamn nursery. You remember the way she smiled when you said it was beautiful, like nobody ever gave the woman a damn compliment, like somehow your appreciation was all that mattered, just for that one moment.

It wasn’t only touch that she was missing; she was starved of intimacy; an intimacy anorexic. Bony, yet craving.

That was the true seat of Gilead’s power. Sequestered and isolated women, estranged from each other until no bonds remained except those that the men in power ordained upon them. To break those shackles required courage, or simple recklessness. You always had a bit of both, and she always had desperation.

It had been honest too in your bedroom before that when she crawled into your bed, with the jealous, covetous slither of her possessive hand under your sheets and dipping below your belly button. Something repulsive yet intriguing emerged from how she kissed your waist then too, because that wasn’t the baby. Babies don’t grow in women’s waists. That was all you she was worshipping and she didn’t even fucking know it. 

_Lie to me again, Mrs. Waterford._

It was too much truth that night.

Every time you took her hand in Gilead, secrets sneaked out. Tiny ones, and big ones. But it was a revelation on an epic, Biblical scale when she pushed her fingers inside of you on your attic bed, letting loose those strangled moans, with her lips on your skin, eating you alive from the inside out. You’ll never forget how it felt when she made you come the first time. So shameless and yet controlled, and how goddamn easily her wet thighs spread for you afterwards.

 _Tell me another lie, Serena. I fucking dare you_.

She couldn’t, not after that because her touch and her response to yours sprayed out honesty all over the two of you; it soaked your skin and made puddles in the wake of every footstep from that point on.

It’s also why you can’t give it up now. Honesty breeds a sort of addiction when everything fits together, and there’s a comfort and safety and thrill in being that raw. She’s exposed, and so are you, but only to each other. You need that, and you know she does too.

* * *

Canada is breaking up. Disintegrating slowly.

Its little pieces, a melting iceberg. Like when that used to be a source of news as thousand-year-old glaciers slowly slipped into a warming ocean, millimetre by millimetre. Technically imperceptible to anybody in any time frame that seemed to matter then. How did America fall so quickly and Canada is the one slowly weathering away, far more able to withstand the beating? But then, you suppose that’s just how it’s always been. The United States was all about big sounds, big explosions, big drama. Canada was your quieter, more well-behaved cousin who was afraid of getting in trouble but always followed along slowly, eventually, from a safe distance.

You see it in the faces of women here, and you can recognise it only because you’ve seen it before. Back then, you had no ability to translate what that was. People like your mother, she knew. She’d seen it maybe before, or at least was attuned enough to suffering and fear. They are small glances, a little more frequently. Panic. Maybe some judgement. There are more babies being born than a few years ago, but not by much, yet the complaints now are all about the refugees and “illegal immigrants” on the lips of Canadians born here, about so-called national resources and economic burden. Those _illegals_ , the Gilead waste. _They really don’t contribute, do they?_ Canadians want to know. And even more than the simmering anger towards refugees as a whole, there are more pressing concerns as birthrates haven’t recover as quickly as projected. A woman’s role, her duty, her _place_ , what a woman even is and how to use her best: those are the things that are quietly blistering out from under all the whispers. It’s already happened.

The water is rising, inch by inch and you know how it ends. Men, you know from experience, will push and worm their ways into this gentle form of terrorism with words and ideas instead of guns and violence. Those come later, when everyone is scared and hateful enough to pick up a weapon, for defense, they’ll tell themselves. Right now, where you are in Canada’s biggest city, it almost seemed impenetrable once. You thought it was impossible that Gilead’s roots would reach into the docile, liberal hearts and minds. But there’s no fooling someone who’s lived it before. 

Men will turn fully first, under threat of their decreasing claims to their alleged manhood (money, access to women, jobs, children), then women will follow, out of fear (of the same men, of each other, of life itself). Soon, it won't be enough to blame people like you, the pathetic, sponging refugees and escapees. Those roots will spider underneath the fertile soil, reaching and seeking anger and fear. The voices of survivors will be drowned out by men, and their female co-conspirators, all variations of Fred and Serena Joy. They'll come for all women again soon enough. 

Ignorance and cowardice have never been a good combination. No one is immune and everyone is looking for somebody to blame. 

It turns out, today, that person is you.

You’re unceremoniously kicked out of your Gilead survivor’s group one Thursday evening without warning. The previous week, there had been no rumblings of discontent beyond the usual (ever since Serena entered back into your life in a permanent type of way). Of course, they all disapproved of your choices, but in group, you weren’t meant to judge someone for their feelings, and you had never withheld the fact that the strongest feeling you had was always confusion for her place in your life.

Serena is, to every survivor except one, the quintessential example of Gilead’s scope, hypocrisy, and cruelty. They don't accept her transformation as genuine, but rather a last ditch attempt at self-preservation.

They all share their thoughts in a circle, in measured tones and using “feeling words”, but somehow it stings even more like Gilead. You may as well be seated in the centre, with fingers pointed at you and a chorus of battered women screaming your worthlessness in your face. The shame is palpable and it makes you shiver as you’re forced to listen to woman after woman tell you how wrong you are for allowing Serena into your life again, how concerned they are for your children, how disappointed, how you should know better, and how people are unforgivable sometimes. Forgiveness, apparently, isn’t a blanket to be shared with the most in need of it. Some people deserve to freeze to death. 

People aren’t unforgivable, you think. To them, a specific person is, and she’s the same spokesperson for Gilead that tugs your earlobe between her teeth and sets your body on fire; that holds you tenderly after a nightmare and whispers to you. The one who shoos at you when she's covered in toddler vomit because she knows how easily you throw up just at the smell alone, even though you know her pregnancy hormones make it just as unbearable for her. 

You’re not allowed to share those sorts of anecdotes because they make other people in group uncomfortable, Lisa said. Lisa, who used to be an Aunt and leads the group every week. 

Nobody wants to hear about Serena unless it validates their bias. They need _someone_ to hate, not just a country, or an organization of men, or an idea. And you’re sleeping with the enemy.

It almost comes out as an ultimatum, but even they aren’t that stupid. Instead it ends with you standing up and pulling on your winter jacket in the eerie stillness of the dank basement meeting room. The session is only half over, but who are you to ruin a party? Disinvited. That’s what you’ve become.

It sounds only slightly nicer than _shunned_. 

If this is any indication of the polarization happening in Canada, it doesn’t bode well. And everyone in that damn therapy group should know better, read the signs better, and understand what’s really lying underneath it all. Maybe they do and this is just easier for the time being, or, and the scary part to you is, maybe they don’t.

History repeating once again on that scratchy loop as faces turn away.

You arrive home earlier than planned, having resisted the urge to pop into a bar and down five shots of whiskey. Once, if you had a troubling group session, you'd find yourself at that crappy apartment in G-Dump, knocking on a familiar door, and twenty minutes later, naked on a second-hand mattress with Serena's hot mouth ravenous between your legs and her sticky fingers grasping at your thighs. You'd liked it better that way, because forgetting was so much easier with something else to take the pain away. 

Serena isn't even downstairs, because she rarely is unless you or Nicole is also there. All 5-foot-5 of Moira seems too intimidating to your towering girlfriend (or whatever she is that doesn't make it sound like you're twenty-two years old again). 

"You're back early," Moira idly comments from her spot on the sofa, as the Woodmans also glance up from the stupid Canadian sitcom on the TV. All eyes in the room seem to focus on your unexpected presence. 

"Where's Serena?"

"Hello to you too."

" _Whatever_." You can't deal with Moira right now. Partly because you know she’d nod, and her lips would set into a quilted line as you tell her why you’re home early. She's not an unempathetic person at all, but you'd know just by that expression alone that she would agree with the group and their decision. You shouldn't be welcomed in a circle of victims from Serena's hand if you actively engage with her the way you do. It spits in everyone's faces, you fucking hypocrite. Their screaming voices are all you can hear at times like this, even if they’ve never so much as raised their voices towards you in reality.

How much easier your life would be here if you could just disconnect from her entirely. But you can't. God, you've fucking tried. Even when she was forcibly taken from you for months on end, all she had to do was show up in the middle of the night, say nothing, and you pulled her back into your bed, suddenly craving her with a hunger you’d not even realised you felt.

The situation was totally different, but it echoed off barren rock from a time in Gilead, back when this thing with her had just barely begun. Like a ghost haunting you, you'd witnessed the nightmare of similarity. You and her were not so different after all. Not when you stripped yourselves down to naked truths. You'd tell yourself that as she kissed you, her hands large and pushing down on your shoulders until you lay supplicant underneath her imposing body, that's what you were thinking. It was staring in a mirror, except in your case, underneath you was the body of a man with dark hair and darker eyes.

What she did to you was what you'd done to Nick. You'd found liberation through carnal, bodily pleasure, unrestrained by social roles or the glaring fear of being seen in the light. He allowed you to use him, without reproach, with consent, really. (It wasn't one-sided. It was a dance.) He did not awaken anything in you, nor did he unlock a secret world for you. You'd done it for yourself, and he was a partner in the exploration, not a cause.

So, in Gilead, when Serena Joy came towards you that second time, no longer with tears drying on her face but rather a determined glint in her dangerous blue eyes, there was nothing to see except yourself. You consented to her, as Nick had to you.

 _Pay it forward_ , that was what they used to call it.

Nick stripped away _Offred_ and allowed you to be June again. You tore at the same binding around _Mrs. Waterford_ , and she let go of Offred finally. Both signifiers were discarded on the wooden floorboards like your nightdress.

On her large, haunted bed in a cold room, her uniform blues falling away with every passing gasp, her lips forceful and hard, your hands venturing along previously unfamiliar curves, you alone bore witness to the true emancipation of Serena Joy Waterford.

The group didn’t know that, they couldn’t. Neither did Moira. They wouldn't understand even if you told them. 

It was you and her alone, and it often still feels like it’s you and her alone together against the rest of the world outside. The name of the country has changed, its laws have changed, its geography has changed, but it is still isolating and scary, forcing the segregation of women from each other. Your hands are raw from trying to dig through stone to get at the roots and show them to everyone; it doesn’t matter how you frame it or what you feel, the group that has just shunned you is a telling microcosm of the rest of the country. So, you cling to Serena in that murky liminal space that’s left for you, partly out of fear, partly out of desire, partly out of duty, and then there’s something else that has no name. 

You’re only free from the looming dread when she touches you, and she’s free too.

All you want is for that to last.

The stairs creak on your way up, knowing where to find her, burrowed away from the life downstairs, coveting her one and only tether to the world as she had envisioned it once. Out there, Canada is falling apart and you’d really like to forget that just for a little while.

A soft orange glow slips out from under the door to your bedroom, beckoning, and already you feel it coming for you. There’s no sound, just the click of the doorknob and the gentle swish of a page in a book. She looks up at you from the bed, and from her reading, with confusion. Nicole is fast asleep on her toddler bed in the far corner. It’s so quiet and peaceful and calm. It’s everything the last hour hasn’t been.

Serena might call it a holy space; you think of it as refuge.

Where Moira had words for you, an inane commentary about the reality of your life, Serena stares, closes her book and waits. That’s all you’ve been searching for: silence.

This is what your group has banned you for seeking out. Suddenly, the night's events come flushing back in waves of anger, and frustration, and grief. Is that possible? That group has been your core support outside this house since you fell onto the muddy banks of the St. Lawrence. You can’t afford private therapy. They're your people, your friends, your confidants who know so much more about you than maybe even Moira does. Maybe more than Serena. And yet, they still cut you out like a bruise on an apple. Like garbage. Like you were the rotten one, and the entire journey together was nothing.

So much for the sisterhood.

Still, anger is so much easier to understand, to cope with than anything else and the fear of what all this means is paralysing. Whatever this pain is cracking over your chest isn't so easy to manage. It's too familiar and you know without a doubt that your heart is breaking again. How many times can a person experience this before it gets too damaged to repair?

Maybe all of that is on your face because she's put her book down on the blankets and slips off the bed to stand in front of you. 

She doesn't ask. Such silly platitudes anyway. Instead, she watches you carefully, her eyes shining and darting across your face, putting together the pieces about why you're home so early, why you're here, why you look so defeated and tired, and why your shoulders look like the weight is just too much. You're caving in on yourself. 

The smell of the dead cold winter air still clings to your coat until she pulls on the edges, slipping it from you and letting it fall at your feet. 

The quiet tenderness of that alone prickles along your spine, and with a tremble, you draw in a stuttering breath. No, you won’t break from that. It really doesn’t matter what you tell yourself anymore because most of it is a lie. Her hand travels slowly down your arm in what should be comfort but it feels like a plea instead, the way she grasps onto your fingers before letting go.

 _Hold me_ , your bones practically beg. _Please, don’t make me ask this time. I’m so tired_. You’ll tell Serena anything she wants to hear if you can just feel her for a few minutes.

The way she says your name has always sounded so dense and penetrating, so layered that inside it are a hundred things she’s trying to ask you all dusted with the shadow of an eternal apology for all those times she used Offred instead. You always have to take a second for it to register as the sound fills your blood, rippling over your body and leaking into every crevice. This time, however, it seems like she has an idea as a flicker of panic dashes across her face. Maybe it’s concern. Sometimes you can’t trust your own senses with her. 

The thing about her voice is how easily it breaks you, how quickly it can ruin you with one syllable, how weak you become at its timbre. All the power she owns rests inside your name and the way it drips off the tip of her tongue. Once a weapon, an apology, a key, and a plea all at once, it’s become even bigger no matter how familiar it is now. You imagine yourself perched on the edge of a cliff, and she’s the push of wind, the crumbling of the earth under your feet, the echo of the angry ocean far below. 

“June?”

Rocks tumble as the ground cracks between your toes, your voice falling apart. “They said I can’t come to the group anymore.”

The first thing you register in her posture is indignation, with the way she backs up just a little, sets her jaw stiffly with that dark look ghosting over her eyes. 

_She’ll kill them_ , you think, knowing it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. She’s done so much worse and your chest flares with a sick burning pride. But it evaporates a second later as she reaches out, pulling at your shoulders and holding you against her, trading vengeance for comfort. Who is this person? She’s not the Serena Joy Waterford your group knows and has shunned you for.

“Oh, _June_.”

That’s honestly all it takes for you to finally break open, and out come the tears, torrents of them like you haven’t shed in years. Her shirt is balled into your fists as you push hard against her, and Nicole sleeps through it all, as if crying is a lullaby to her. Your shoulders rock and heave with the sudden onslaught of sobbing. It’s grief, you know. It’s frustration and rage and an undeniable hurt that even now, even after everything you’ve experienced, you still aren’t allowed to live the way you need. That group, they should know better than anybody else what exclusion and isolation can do to a person. It fucking… _kills_. That’s all there is to it; a great ball of stinging betrayal that has lodged itself tight in your belly, like the ragged tearing of a broken bottle shredding what’s left inside. 

Your eyes burn and your throat is raw already as you cry, and she’s just there, allowing her cotton t-shirt to soak through with your tears as she holds you, gripping more tightly, and the hiccups start in your chest. They hurt too. Searing and sharp, with each spasm another blast of fireworks, it’s taking on the bursting colours of fury and agony.

Her arms are so solid, and she’s so warm. It makes you cry harder that you’re not supposed to have this, that most people would have you lose this to be considered one of them again. Her lips linger on your forehead, on your hair, and you think she might be whispering something to you but everything is too loud in your ears to make out the words. Even the baby seems to be kicking where your bodies meet.

Why aren’t you allowed this?

There’s an ache building in your chest the longer you cry. A vice is tightening around your lungs and you suck in air more desperately between the stuttering sobs, gulping like a fish in the bottom of a tin boat with a hook through your cheek. You haven’t cried this hard in years. Not since those first few days of Gilead’s takeover when you lost both Luke and Hannah in the span of thirteen minutes. And the entire time, Serena is calm, composed, and steady. That hurts too because once this stoicism would have infuriated you, and now it’s the only thing that’s holding the pieces of your sanity together. 

Her cheek is pressed to the crown of your head with her arms sturdy around your shaking form, and it’s the safest place you know. With a gentle nudge, she pulls you to the bed and you collapse with her onto the sheets. She dabs your face with the hem of her oversized cotton t-shirt before settling down alongside you, once again pulling you closer, rubbing slow circles on your back as the heaving sobs slow into jerky attempts at breathing.

They want to tell you this is wrong. They claim you’re a traitor, a hypocrite, an enabler simply for seeking comfort from her. You’re just as bad as she is if you condone it. Except you don’t. You never have, and surely somebody must understand that it’s not some self-destructive sadistic fetish, and you wouldn’t choose these feelings if you had any semblance of control over it?

She’s meant to be in a prison, wasting away, alone, and then so are you. Would that make everyone feel more comfortable if Serena’s gone, but you’re left in the aftermath, lonely and rotting too?

“C’mere, shh, baby,” you hear quietly whispered against your messy hair as you lie entwined together on your bed, and you can’t even process how strange it is to hear those words from her when you’ve never used any such things with each other. But something about this vulnerable moment and the way she so casually throws the endearment into the air makes another crack split open inside you. The wail splinters against your ribcage and tears at your raw throat until it escapes as a choked sort of whimper.

God, it feels so good to cry like this, finally, after all these years, after so long holding it all in just to survive. And Serena just waits, and touches, and pushes her nose into your hair, inhaling deeply as if she’s trying to breathe in all the excess pain somehow. She doesn’t tell you to stop, or offer idiotic platitudes. She lets it happen, in safety. What an eerie reality after so many years of danger in every shadow.

You’ve always let each other cry. The tears are nothing new. In fact, they’re probably as familiar and as old as your entire relationship, back to those first months in the Waterford house. The muscles in your hands are sore from how tightly they’ve clenched her shirt, and finally the waves begin to subside, just in time for the soft knock at your bedroom door.

Serena says nothing, no invitation. She just tenses as if she’s preparing to throw herself in between you and whatever is waiting on the other side, baby or no baby.

“I got June some tea,” comes a voice you recognise as a meek Moira.

“Thanks,” you manage to croak out from where you’ve burrowed into Serena’s shoulder. Your throat is scratchy and sore. The door snicks open and Moira stands there with her hands around a steaming mug. You can catch her surprised glance over the scene. No doubt you look a mess because if the burning in your eyes and the dampness all over is any indication, your eyes will be bloodshot, your face flushed and blotchy as you lie with Serena. Reluctantly your fingers loosen around her clothes, your only tether to sanity at this point. There’s an apologetic way Moira’s face sets and you know she’s regretting the—well, you’re not sure because she didn’t do anything wrong, when you think about it.

Your breath can’t quite even out and slowly you drag your body into a sitting position, away from Serena’s warmth. The heel of your hand runs over your chapped eyes, although there’s no real way to wipe away the tears you’ve just shed all over the room. The mattress shifts as you feel her next to you, sitting up with her large hand on the small of your back.

Eventually Moira steps into your room, holding out the steaming tea like a white flag. Her gaze keeps darting between your face and Serena. You two will always be a puzzle to her, and everyone else, apparently.

Moira will want to talk about group, about why you're home early and are never going back again, but at least she has the sense to let that conversation be something for another time, preferably when you're not a snotty, gross, blotchy mess of a person. You can feel Serena's heat radiating beside you, steady and strong. Like one of those cheap pet shop lizards, you lean into it, almost without knowing. You'd always thought she was the snake, not you.

As Moira passes you the mug, she glances towards Serena. 

"How are the cramps?" she asks haughtily, and for a second, you feel guilty because you burst in like a weeping hurricane and swallowed up everything in the room, not once considering how anybody else feels. It felt sort of nice, for once, if you're honest to just focus on yourself. But now you’re met with a significant wave of remorse for your own selfishness. 

"I'm fine," is all Serena offers, her voice shifting as if she wants to change the subject already. 

You stare at Moira for a moment, then to Serena, looking down at the large swell of her belly. "Serena…"

"Drink your tea," is all she says hotly, dismissively, and you obey, cradling the mug in your hands as you hiccup again.

Your best friend lingers in the doorway, considering her next move. Once it would have been her to come to your room, hug it out of you, and let you vent to your heart’s content until you both ended up in deranged nonsensical laughter or taking shots of bourbon straight from the bottle. Now, she’s on the sidelines and Serena has planted herself firmly between you. The thing is, you’re not opposed to this shift because Moira already has so much to deal with; listening to you whinge about how the survivor’s group doesn’t want you because you are currently fucking one of the very people that forced them into the label of “Gilead survivor” in the first place isn’t going to help her. It helps nobody except you. Not to mention, she doesn’t get it.

Serena does, and her bias doesn’t have you making up excuses or needing to justify it all. That little bit of breathing room makes all the difference.

There’s a flicker of recognition, perhaps, from Moira in the doorway that her place is no longer by your side like this. Something has happened because of Gilead that, despite all your best attempts, has splintered just that small part of your relationship. Maybe without Serena around, it could be repaired, but part of you believes it never can be. They are chips that can never be glued back in. The stone will never be solid again.

Maybe ten years down the road, it won’t matter what has happened. Maybe ten years down the road, Serena will be gone and you and Moira will be friends just like you were before Gilead. But it isn’t ten years later yet. It’s just now, and now _hurts_. Now is when you need to not have to carry Moira’s guilt and anger too, when you need space to breathe and not think about other people and their pain. You just want someone to hold you, kiss your hair, and not speak for a while. You don’t want the burden of worrying about anybody else, and yes, it’s selfish but that doesn’t stop it from being true.

You’re allowed not to worry about Serena because she doesn’t ask you to. Not at this moment, anyway. You just want to be held and told your name. It’s simple, and selfish, and necessary.

Moira gives you one last look, a twinge of something in her face, as if she misses you too. Up comes the guilt from that idea alone. So, instead, you look down to your mug, close your eyes, and sigh. 

You wait until you hear the click of the bedroom door close before looking up again to the ceiling. Serena’s fingers wrap around the warm mug and place it beside the bed before she eases you back down on the mattress to rest. She spoons up behind you, as best she can in her distended state, and her arms are soft and warm. It’s safe here for a moment, and you intertwine her fingers with yours and pull her more tightly against you. 

Your eyes are closed and your ragged breathing has evened out mostly by the time she speaks again, muttering into your hair.

“All will be well.” A shiver passes through your body at the words, so familiar still. Then she continues, ignoring their power to reference the past. “He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, ' _Thou shalt not be overcome_.’”

The cold fingers of the past release their hold on you with the new words she murmurs against you. _Your very own guardian angel_ , you recall a deeper voice reciting, just for a second before you begin to drift off to an exhausted sleep.


	3. the world's worst prank

It’s a difficult pregnancy and no number of self-help books or cutesy how-to TV shows are really going to change that. You’d thought Nicole was pretty bad, and aside from the almost dying of an intrauterine haemorrhage thing, overall, it hadn’t really been that uncomfortable. There was a little morning sickness, some aches and pains, fatigue. All the usual stuff.

Besides the bleeding, cramping, fatigue, dizziness, swelling, pain, migraines, and general unease, Serena’s been an emotional tornado. You don’t remember any of this with Hannah or Nicole, and even you and Moira as an experienced-if-unprofessional midwifery team are occasionally at a loss at how to help. She’s a straight up mess of a human being, and what makes it worse is she hates herself the most. Obviously, she had some rarefied, rosy vision of pregnancy, probably based on a few too many women’s magazine articles, navel-gazing self-help books, or those _bullshit_ celebrity puff pieces celebrating the glories of motherhood. Oh, and the small fact she’s never really had to struggle with a thing in her life. Maybe it’s God’s own justice that she has quite possibly one of the worst pregnancies you’ve seen directly.

Yet, for some reason, this particular morning has been calm, nice smooth waters; the kind of thing you’d hope for in the third trimester. It’s some sort of record but it’s the sixth consecutive day without an emergency visit to the doctor. Part of you wants to throw a party for that singular fact alone. When Serena insists on joining you to go for groceries, you can’t exactly say no even though she’s more of a hindrance than a help, and quite frankly, you were looking forward to some time all by yourself. For once. But she’s pleading in that silent and impertinently smug way of hers, and you grudgingly admit that maybe some company would be nice, even if you’re aware that you’re going to end up spending about $30 more than planned on junk food for her, or worse, some weird combination of peanut butter, fruit roll-ups, and refried beans in a tin. The thought alone makes you gag.

Half the car ride is her complaining about the music on the radio, and the other half is her enacting quite the performance of pointedly sulking in silence. By the time you turn off the road and towards the supermarket, you’re about ready to just kick her out and tell her to waddle her pregnant ass home. You’re reminded every three seconds about why you wanted to do this particular chore alone.

The Loblaws parking lot is pretty full for a weekday afternoon but as always, there are a few “Mothers with Families” spots open. The signage is generally pretty sparse these days. Not a lot of babies being born, even now with all of Canada’s attempts to rectify the problem.

As you pull forward into the space, next to you in the passenger seat, you hear a strangled gasp. The shopping hasn’t even begun and Serena’s already falling to pieces. This is why you would have preferred to leave her home with Nicole. Your daughter tends to soothe her frazzled nerves and by some brilliant miracle from God, Serena’s temper is nonexistent around her and her alone. You’d think by now she’d have snapped. 

Well, she has. Just not at Nicole, her precious treasure. Moira’s taken a few lashings, of the verbal kind and given them right back, as she does. There’s still no love lost between them. Erin accidentally entered the fray one day as well, but gave Serena the finger silently before walking out on her in mid-tirade. You, well, you’re sort of used to it. Not that it’s frequent but she sulks a lot, complains, bitches about little things and you put it down to a difficult pregnancy. The rest of the time she’s so broody, needy, affectionate to an almost suffocating degree. She’s fucking impossible and you can’t wait for it all to be over.

“What?” You don’t mean to snap at her as you turn off the ignition. There are just so many errands to run and this is not going to help.

She starts blubbering like a goddamn child and points to the sign above the parking space. 

_Expectant Mothers and Parents with Children ONLY._

What is the fucking problem? You squint at her a little, repressing the urge to roll your eyes. “Yeah? So?”

“I just never thought…” She bursts into tears.

Oh, for Christ’s sake. 

These must be the worst pregnancy hormones you’ve ever seen, and you dealt with Moira who seemed like a whiny, furious nightmare at the time. Maybe you’d have more sympathy for Serena if this was the first time she’s been unable to control herself in the wake of a wave of incessant emotionality. But she’s also the same crying mess that broke down in tears at a Wal-Mart when she saw the baby care aisle. Or the same woman who insisted on decking out the shared group vehicle with baby bumper stickers. Both Moira and Luke snickered about Serena slapping those outdated stick figure decals on the back window: Two women, a little girl, and a baby. You went out and bought another one for Hannah and recall berating Serena for her narrow-minded callousness. Moira added on a man and another woman, for Luke and herself who both put in money towards the car. Erin placed a cat for herself. Then the Woodmans decided to slap on another man, woman, and two boys. So, now the decals make it look like a goddamned clown car. You live with a travelling circus. And it’s all Serena’s fault.

She just sits there, sobbing quietly in the passenger seat and you reach out for her hand, grabbing at her tightly. There’s a little bit of familiarity in the air. It smells sort of like when you found out you were pregnant with Nicole: kind of damp, musty. Her unmaimed hand grasps at the huge swell of her belly as if it’ll simply pop and disappear any second.

Yeah, maybe you can remember that overwhelming irrational fear too.

“Come on,” you say, your voice dropping to a gentle whisper, wrangling every ounce of patience you have left. You pat her leg. “Let’s get the groceries and go home.” 

Serena nods, forcing out a tight smile and wiping her hand across her face, and pulls in a deep, stuttering breath to calm her nerves. She used to be so skilled at forcing such masks back into place in a matter of seconds.

You’ve grabbed the canvas shopping bags, crawled out of the car, and are waiting for her in the passing drizzle when you realise she’s not moving. She’s still sitting in her seat, and you shake your head in disbelief. She’s worse than Moira was; she’s even worse than Nicole, who is a literal toddler. With a roll of your eyes, a quick march later, you yank the passenger side door open and glare down at her. 

“Are you coming, or should I just let you sit here while I do the shopping?” you gripe, more than ready to leave her here like a dog.

Serena looks up at you, and her blue eyes are moist, tears still threatening to spill over. “June.” Her voice is so broken, so soft and for a moment you feel a little bit guilty about how impatient you are with her. She makes it really difficult not to be though.

“I don’t want this,” she whispers.

Another roll of your eyes, and you set your jaw stiffly in response to whatever bullshit she’s talking about now. “Come on, get out.” You take her hand and help her out of the seat. Maybe the cold sunshine will help her mood. She slams the door heavily behind her and you flinch, because loud sounds like that still have something to them that set your nerves on edge. 

“June, wait,” she calls to you as you walk away. “I can’t.”

“Now what?” Maybe her ankles are too sore. Maybe she’s got cramps.

Her tone this time is impatient with you, of all things. “Can you please stop?” Within seconds, her eyes tear up again. “I can’t have this baby.”

This is really not the right place to have this discussion. It’s chilly, and damp, and it’s a fucking _parking lot_. With a long sigh, your shoulders slump because she seems to be intent on doing this right now, no matter what. “Why, Serena?”

“It’ll have his name.” There’s a sliver of fear in her voice that is terrifyingly unfamiliar. It sends spikes of anxiety through your body. Serena has always been so good at hiding her emotions, especially fear. This is palpable, way too close to the surface, and nothing unnerves you more than when Serena is legitimately frightened. Her being cowardly, that's normal. This is something else.

Suddenly you're looking over your shoulder, as if a Guardian is going to grab you or her, or both, at any second.

"What?"

She trembles, visibly. "I don't want his name anymore. I don't want our baby to have his name."

It hits hard, like the wind being knocked out of you. When she talks about the growing life inside her, it's always "the baby" or "my child". This is the first time Serena has acknowledged that whatever is happening is mutual, it's a joint effort. Your baby. _Our_ baby. For a second, you feel your throat grow tight and something warm tickles your eyes. Taking a deep breath, you try not to let Serena see how much those two words have affected you. 

And quite frankly, you don't want your baby to have Fred Waterford’s name _either_. What a cruel joke that even now he could be granted a son.

There's a feeling, roiling in your gut, something possessive and wet, like tar or mud. It sticks to you and you can’t shake it off, threatening to engulf you entirely at any moment. This baby is yours and Serena's. Not Fred’s and it doesn’t belong to Gilead either. After what he pulled with Nicole, even the name alone is too much of a risk. It’s a burden no one, no child, should carry.

Walking back to her, you lean a hip against your car and cross your arms, regarding her carefully in the sunlight. She's tensely braced between the door and a big black SUV in the space beside you.

Moira’s voice is suddenly rising, ricocheting, in your ears about consequences and the future and criminal trials. What could happen then? Serena's son, with the name of a Gilead Commander, would he be taken back if she was imprisoned? Plus, you know you don't want to testify. The crazy idea bouncing around in your mind seems like the perfect solution to all of these problems.

"Let's get married." You state it plainly, as if you're suggesting a restaurant to grab dinner at later. After all, it isn't expected and you are standing in a supermarket parking lot. Hardly a romantic notion. 

It's her turn to scoff and roll her eyes, but at least you get a sad, disbelieving smirk. "Stop it."

Your insane proposal has broken the tension if nothing else. "I'm serious," you try again, because the thing is, you actually are. "I'm divorced; you got that annulment."

" _June_." Her voice is low, holding a warning for you to stop fooling around. Maybe there's a little lilt of hope however. 

"Excuse me." A female voice comes from behind you and you glance back to see a woman with her car keys and a bag of groceries in her hand. There are more important things than getting in that fancy SUV. 

With a shrug, you don't move. She coughs behind you, pointedly. "Give us a second," you snap, a little too testily considering the other woman has been nothing but polite. Serena's refusal to accept reality is starting to grate on your nerves again.

"If I could just—" the stranger tries again, unconcerned by your pressing conversation.

"Look, I’m trying to propose to my—my whatever, here, okay? Relax."

Maybe that was a little rude. Yeah. Serena, your precious "whatever", is just glaring at you like she’s realised you're playing the world’s worst prank. What does she want? For you to go down on one knee? Pull out a ring? Well, neither of those things is fucking happening because the ground is disgusting and wet, and it's not like this was exactly planned, so the grand gesture is well and truly out the window. You don't have a ring; you never really considered the need to ever get one for her or anyone else really. 

"So?" You try again. Bristling with impatience is usually her thing, not yours. 

The fact you're not giving up, and still demanding an answer, is making her twitch a little. Hopefully it'll sink in soon so this poor lady can get to her car. 

"Can we talk about this?" Her voice is low, embarrassed, almost a hiss really, and you don't understand what her problem is. You've just offered the perfect solution to the very thing that caused this whole breakdown in the first place. But no, in flawless Serena Joy style, she has to make this ten times more difficult than it needs to be. She's truly a work of art. 

With a shrug, you back away. "Fine, great, Serena. Let's go get the groceries and we can _talk_ about it." Your words are hard and edged with sarcasm. Angrily, her puffy eyes cloud over at your tone, but she sets her jaw rigidly and follows behind you, in silence. 

* * *

“Okay.”

She’s fiddling with a tin of sweet corn, picking at the label as she rolls it back and forth in her hands. Of course, neither of you has spoken about the terrible little suggestion you’ve just made in the parking lot. The only conversation has been about children’s lunches and dinners, about the exorbitant price of tuna now that they’re almost extinct, and about the sad state of fruit in Canada in winter. Apples. Red apples, green apples, but still, just apples. How fucking fitting to be completely surrounded by the iconographic forbidden fruit at a time like this. _You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die_. _In pain, you shall bring forth children_. You had picked a dozen of the freshest apples even so.

The voices of Handmaids echo in your head now, feeling their pointed fingers and vicious glares from around the shaming circle. _Sinner! Sinner! Sinner!_

Blinking quickly, you shake it off. She places the tin into the cart, followed by seven more. They’re on sale. Her haughty silence isn’t particularly helpful but this has always been life with Mrs. Waterford in a nutshell.

Your eyes flit over her face, down to her fidgeting fingers picking at her nailbeds, and back up again to her eyes. “What?”

She huffs impatiently, as if you’re being purposely dense and trying to make her life unnecessarily difficult. “I said, okay. Yes.”

And that’s how you get engaged to Serena Joy Waterford. In the tinned food aisle of a supermarket, with her curt tone and your impulsive need to regain the vague semblance of control you maybe had, once, long ago.

* * *

Nobody is happy about your news except Serena’s book agent and Mark Tuello. You suspect that glee has nothing to do with your happiness or Serena’s, or even the assured safety of the children. It’s all about Gilead. Even now, your life and hers are still all about Gilead. Moira hasn’t spoken more than three gruff words to you in four days. Luke won’t answer your phone calls, and Hannah doesn’t know, probably. You haven’t seen Erin at all. Even the Woodmans are sneaking around the house as if they’d rather not get involved in any way. It’s not surprising because you’re not quite certain you’re happy about the agreement either.

Hell, you glance over at Serena and she doesn’t even seem happy. There is this belt of tension everywhere that is tightening by the minute. Doom never felt so suffocating before.

Maybe it’s best to just do it. 

After you get the license, sign your names to all sorts of paperwork at City Hall, and arrange for a minister to oversee it all, Serena calls up a local restaurant and books their private party room in a week and a half. It’s so unlike any wedding you’d ever planned on, and nothing like how you and Luke chose to start your lives together. She writes up fourteen invitations in her perfect cursive penmanship and you hand them out to the tiny group of friends you have.

That’s all it takes really. Nobody declines, not even Luke or Moira. Nicole tries to eat hers, which is likely the most honest anybody has been. And just like that, the date is set.

You can’t stop thinking that it’s all a terrible idea. Moira says as much and you nod.

Then you return to your bedroom, say goodnight to Nicole, and crawl into bed next to Serena who is already asleep. For a second you stare at the back of her head in the dark, bitterly wondering how you managed to get yourself into such shit with the one woman who has been more horrible to you than anybody else. But your eyes slip over the bare curve of her shoulder and your breath catches for no reason. Pausing to take in what little of her you can see, you sigh. If nothing else, this allows you to cope with the past. That’s all you can ask for, it seems, even if it makes you hate yourself just a little more.

* * *

She is fucking _beautiful_. 

You didn’t see it, not at first anyway and not for years, because the ugliness of her whole being overwhelmed it. Physical beauty means nothing when a person is rotting from the inside out, and Serena Joy Waterford was rotten, a rancid piece of meat useful only for feeding paranoid, hateful ideology to blowflies and maggots. For a few seconds, that first time you fucked her on that rickety single bed in her dark attic, just fleetingly, you’d seen someone else. There had been glimpses before, when her armour would fall away and she’d be the person you wanted to believe existed underneath the thick scales of religious zealotry and selfishness. But when she came, writhing against you in all her sweaty, wanton, desperate glory, there was a bright flash of another person, the woman she may have been once upon a time. Like a camera going off somewhere, illuminating the entire space and freezing the moment for later.

Now, you can gaze at her for long minutes and not see that slip away. Even when she rolls over in the morning, with her hair sticking out and tangled, a stuffy nose, and wrinkles from the pillow on her cheek, something crackles in your chest, like static electricity or a candy wrapper in a quiet theatre. 

You swore this wouldn’t happen, that you wouldn’t allow it to happen. _No_ , you assure yourself, _it hasn’t happened_. _It won’t. It can’t_. _Not with her_. Imagination is a powerful drug.

She delicately chews the end of her pen, her teeth nipping at the plastic as her eyes are focused on the pages of text in front of her. Something about the image brings you back to Gilead, to the way she fiddled with that pen, picked at her nails, lightly tapped the pen against her bottom lip. 

Tomorrow at 2 PM, you’ll be standing in the back party room of a local Italian restaurant with a minister from the United Church and changing your life substantially, perhaps. _No_ , it’s just a business decision, you remind yourself. It’s about securing the safety of children, especially the unborn one that Serena is carrying. Nothing else. Well, not exactly _entirely_ about that, but mostly. Any misguided affection you have for Serena—not to mention the way she sets your body on fire—is secondary to the pressing issue of saving children from the paranoid nightmare scenarios Serena’s dreamt up.

Why aren’t you anxious? 

It’s just a contract. That’s why. No different than signing a job offer. Not that you have a habit of sleeping with your bosses or coworkers, and raising their children.

Serena is next to you, still chomping on the blue plastic as she scans the pages, occasionally scribbling or scratching at something. It’s for her new book and she appears completely unperturbed that in twenty four hours, you and she will be married. In fact, she seems to barely recognise the concept at all, one way or another. It’s just a normal Thursday evening, all things considered.

Your gaze flits from her mouth to her fingers where she’s idly toying with the corner of a page, then back up to her concerted face and furrowed brow. 

Without looking up from her reading, she grumbles with an air of exasperation. “What?”

Thoughts stumble around, smacking clumsily against each other in your haste to come up with anything to say to her sudden, unexpected question. With a weak whine, the first coherent thought limps out. “You’re going to ruin your pen again.”

A short huff escapes from her and she slaps the pen against her pages. Turning to you in silence, she glares at you for an exceptionally uncomfortable minute as you avoid her. Heat builds in your cheeks every passing second until she finally speaks. “Really? Is my thirty-cent pen that dear to you?”

There’s just the slightest twitch of her lips when you chance a look over to her and you valiantly withhold your own smirk. "No."

Her eyes narrow briefly, skimming over your face as if you're a puzzle missing a piece. "Then what?" She idly taps the pen against her bottom lip and for no reason, you swallow, heavily, noticeably. Her brow arches at your reaction. "Jealous?" She flicks her tongue out against the end of the pen in her mouth and you can’t tell if it’s on purpose to tease you or not.

There's the return of budding warmth to your cheeks despite her guess being entirely baseless. Shaking it off, you snort with a roll of your eyes. "I don't get jealous," you affirm, nodding resolutely. Especially over her. You'd have to feel something with more intimate depth to be capable of jealousy. What you and her share is an understanding, a coping mechanism for survival, and a child. Maybe you’re friends, at a stretch. It is only as deep as it must be. That's all.

"Right," she intones blandly, shrugging at your claim. She knows what this is, and how it can never be more than exactly this, plus some sex on the side. Again, coping. With a final, curious glance to you, she sighs and that goddamn pen finds its way right back between her teeth and those perfect lips again as she returns to her papers.

You want to fucking scream.

 _You're beautiful_ , you long to announce but it sounds far too much like an endorsement of something else, and those are words you will not say. Ever. She doesn't deserve them, and you can't abide the cost. 

"June," she mutters at her scribbled page, again not even looking up and the tease is gone from her voice. "Stop staring at me."

By this time tomorrow night, you will be her wife in the eyes of the law and the United Church of Canada. It is really messing you up, and all because you want to do right by a baby that isn't even yours.

It’s just a business contract to protect the children, you remind yourself again, resentfully, but to no avail because you’re still in bed with her, she’s still too beautiful, and your heart still leaps into your throat when she looks at you in just that way. The frenetic, staccatoed pace of your life in the past few weeks is finally coming to a head in the most surreal way possible.


	4. begged, stole, and borrowed

After so many years, you finally manage to do it: You slaughter Mrs. Waterford. 

The vicious beast falls heavily but gracefully at your feet. Slain by a sword of ceremony and mere words, you wish for a moment that she had been wearing blue. Instead, she’s in white, like the pungent rose that lingers in your memories, and you, also in simple white. The townspeople celebrate, muted and cautious; they know it should be a merry affair, but something isn’t quite as it should be.

Probably because of the colour white. Hardly the attire for a funeral. The innocence and purity is a lie, obviously, but a necessary one.

Still, she smiles as you plunge the knife into her soft belly, and into her stony heart, adding a twist for good measure. You grin back at her, seeing nothing but blue eyes gazing at you in just that way she does, especially early in the quiet morning when it’s just the two of you in bed, or the bathroom, or the kitchen. It’s easy to lose yourself, but you hang on, just enough. You choke her mutilated finger with a tight band of plain white gold, because you can't risk the slip of a noose loosening now, falling from that single knuckle. It's simply too expensive, and brings with it a much worse omen.

She cries a little when strangling your finger in it's own band of delicate gold, and to a more uninformed observer, it could seem like remorse, or worse yet, a punishment inflicted on her. But it's neither. Your small assembled group of onlookers may be concerned, or at best confused by this choice of yours, but that's exactly what makes it imperative and celebratory: it's a choice of yours. 

And just the ability to choose is a motherfucking victory.

For so many years there have been no choices, no options, no forgiveness possible. Then you crawled onto Canadian shores, and suddenly there were so many opportunities. Not a single one of them forced you into anything with Serena, as most of your life actively worked against her. So easy it would have been to ignore her, avoid her, erase her from your entire future and truly start over. And, it wouldn't be a lie to admit that you hadn't considered it, multiple times. Except the choice always came back down to you, and you made the same one. Every single time. (Or so you tell yourself.) You can listen to the officiant speak, grab hold of her hands in yours, smell the gentle perfume of her shampoo and _know_. Choosing is a revolutionary act in itself, not to mention the most damning propaganda that Serena has released so far.

The modest yet emotional wedding of Gilead's most pious sweetheart to another woman, a "fallen" one at that, in a land beyond their clutches is better copy than even Agent Tuello could invent. If you're going to be fully honest with yourself, you can't wait for a few sneaky photos to make their laborious electronic journey through the blogs here to the heavily monitored internet south of the border. Even just the fantasies of those furious, humiliated manfaces alone is enough for a dirty thrill to sweep up your spine.

But this isn't about revenge at its core. Not entirely anyway. Not to her.

The monster that once inhabited the body in front of you in her perfectly tailored suit, feels love somehow, you suspect, although there has been no confirmation. You'd been convinced once that was patently impossible.

In your presence, she had only ever claimed to love one person in her entire empty, stunted, lonely life. And it wasn't the great Commander Waterford. 

Nicole.

Just Nicole. Her whole purpose for being alive, for waking up, for sacrificing every freedom she had. She probably loved Nicole years before she’d even been born. Serena had nothing in her to truly love Fred, at least not the way married people should. She cared for him, liked him probably, was attracted to him maybe—or perhaps his power, was certainly scared of where she fell in society without him and the protection of a gold band around her ring finger. That wasn’t love. You lived under her feet for years, witnessing every blink, every stutter, and every temptation. Not once did you ever see what stands in front of you now.

The first thing she says to you after the officiant gives word for the traditional kiss is _thank you_. It strikes you as a particularly odd thing to say after getting married. _Thank you,_ her hands bracketing your face, thumbs brushing over your cheeks. A desperate whisper and you kiss her again, just to shut her up and shake off the strange cloud. It's too weird, but she just kisses and kisses you as if this is all perfectly normal when it is anything but. Her laying claim to you has become so strikingly commonplace that you barely notice how much it disquiets everyone else.

She murmurs against your mouth now, that she’s grateful, so much, and you can feel the truth in the agitated tremble of her breath.

When you finally put pen to paper and sign the certificate that makes it all real, Serena Joy Waterford truly dies. You've killed her, almost like you would idly dream about all those years ago, trapped beside her with your fingers itching to grab hold of her gardening shears and plunge them deeply into her smooth flesh. You used to imagine her blood was the same scarlet colour as your dress, and that Rita wouldn't even notice the stains. Perhaps recalling murderous fantasies of the woman who is now your spouse isn't the healthiest beginning to a marriage, but it is what it is. You can bury it, but you can't change history. It’s still right there in the ground, waiting to be unearthed.

Or maybe, in a small way, you can keep it there. The paper stares up at you with your signature and hers, her old one, that bad habit of hers. But now, it's different. Mrs. Waterford is dead. Maybe murder and marriage are the perfect combination considering the origins of this connection. 

So, she dies and is buried. Quietly. At the small hands of a heroine, a refugee dragon-slayer.

Serena Osborne is reborn in her place.

Victory.

* * *

You're not sure if you can even call it a reception, because it's just dinner at a restaurant, and not an exceptionally good one, but the best you two can afford. It's nothing like your wedding to Luke, and there's something in his eyes that seems a bit smug about that the entire evening, probably to cover up how painful it is to watch you marry somebody else. Especially this particular someone else. But he's doing his best for Hannah. It’s all for your daughter.

The people Serena calls "friends", and Nicole, are the only guests that appear genuinely happy that this is happening. Nicole is having the time of her little life with all the attention, and sweets, and pushing her chubby little dirty hands right into the side of the small homemade cake before dinner has even started and giggling like a maniac. It's just one thing after another with her but you have hardly the time to concern yourself too much because there are multitude of other guests, though they all require less direct supervision.

Maybe you wish Moira would try a little harder, just for tonight, but then she wouldn't be her. She's at least balanced by the Woodmans, who although they know about Serena (who doesn't?), seem to appreciate her change of heart. Mary Woodman even said it gave her hope for Gilead's eventual destruction to see you and Serena, together, changed. That's the sort of shit you hang onto when Luke glares at you, or Moira turns her nose up as Serena takes your hand. 

And, really, you're surprised Moira’s nose isn't permanently stuck in the air tonight. For some reason, hormones maybe, you cannot keep your hands off each other. Sure, it’s expected at a wedding, but you, and Serena certainly, have always been careful not to go overboard, at any time. Nothing seems to make people more uncomfortable around Serena than seeing her paw at you, or visa versa. Tonight, though? Fuck it. They can deal. You can’t stop touching her. You don’t want to stop touching her. It certainly doesn't help that she looks stunning, to the point that you feel it in your body, that buzz of desire mixed with a greedy sort of pride. She's dressed up before, for various events and meetings, but nothing like _this_. Nothing quite so commanding of attention. You'd expected a white gown, traditional, like Serena insists she is, even now. But when you arrived at the venue, there she was with her hair down and wavy, in the most expertly styled white suit you think you've ever seen, bringing back visions from old magazines of the Manhattan elite and high-class red carpet actresses. How the hell she could afford it was only your third thought after regaining your ability to breathe. It was so perfectly suited to her that her pregnancy didn't even seem noticeable anymore. Suddenly your simple white dress from a mid-range chain retail store felt cheap, and ugly. And maybe it was only fitting that you had shown up for this wedding completely unprepared.

It didn't seem to matter to her, and she's only commented about how wonderful you look, her eyes sparkling. Just because you can't believe it doesn't actually mean she's lying.

Every single time tonight when Serena’s run her fingers over your skin, kissed your shoulder, whispered in your ear, taken your hand, you've been set on fire. Like an overwhelming, burning hot inferno. Maybe you’re just drunk, maybe her obvious hormones are contagious, maybe it's the whole ceremony, all the nostalgia, but maybe more so it's the sheer _normality_ of it that turns you on so fucking much. Once Gilead came to be, you'd expected these sorts of things would disappear forever. Even in Canada. That you'd never be able to recapture those feelings again. Your face hurts from how much you’ve smiled tonight, and there's no explanation why because it's not exactly as if this is your ideal scenario.

So, maybe all this is—this strange hazy dream—is just what relief feels like. The cool and warm breeze of an open door. The sliver of sunlight right after rain. Any number of cliches seem applicable right now. 

You don't have to ask, but you know this is nothing like her wedding to Fred. That was probably full of luxurious filth. Classic. Decadent. Dread, for any normal person but for them, heaven. Despite the fact it's just a handful of people crammed into a mediocre family-owned Italian restaurant here, she seems pretty fucking ecstatic in a way you’re not certain you’ve ever seen on her. Like she's never known anything else but this dream, and now it’s coming true. The fact is part of you is deeply unnerved by the realisation that you’ve never seen her smile this much.

Still, it does something to you to see her sincerely happy, somewhere deep inside your chest. It doesn't matter how wrong Moira says this is or how awkward things are, or how many anonymous people write threatening comments in online blogs about her, you can’t help what the sight of her makes you feel. God knows how hard you've tried to stomp out those feelings—futilely—for years. She's a kicked hornet's nest and you can't quite seem to escape the swarm. If you had your way, none of this would be reality but the way your heart beats slower when she crawls into bed next to you, her lips on your skin, the little glances she sends your way, the way your muscles just loosen without your consent if she's near, you can't control any of that no matter how hard you've tried. 

It's pretty messed up that you're here on your wedding night and still have never said the three little words you know she'd kill to hear, and she never pushes. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she’s actually not a stupid woman. It's better to ignore the absence than insist on its presence. She knows you can't say it, will never be able to say it, because everything you feel for her is so intertwined with your troubled history. And that isn't a good thing. As you ignore her past, she ignores your lack of love. You both pretend the need to say and to hear the words doesn’t exist.

You both love Nicole, and that should be enough. 

The wedding band on your finger glistens in the warm light and for the only time so far, a shudder passes up your spine. Maybe it's not a bad omen, but marrying someone you can’t love? That seems like a terrible idea. Moira is right, Luke is right, the whole damn world outside this room is right. 

This was a convenient, circumstantial strategy. Why are you, and why is she, pretending it's anything but? You made a half-assed proposal in a damn parking lot, for fuck's sake. It was a joke, wasn't it?

You want to fly into a fury when she begins speaking, giving some sort of stupid speech. You’d promised each other no speeches, no custom vows, none of that. Of course it took less than two hours for her to break yet another promise to you, and your skin prickles with anger and embarrassment. She’s such a fucking skilled orator, and it’s obvious she’d premeditated the whole performance; she'd sat around writing and rewriting and planning this moment down to each instance of emphasis and pause. You loathe how beautiful it is, and how it’s about you. Oh God, it’s _all_ about you. You have never once had anybody speak this way about you, so eloquently and holy fuck. Her voice keeps breaking, and those are actual tears in her eyes when she glances at you. 

Okay. She needs to stop right now. 

It’s impeccably rehearsed, and out of the corner of your eye you catch her agent with a cellphone trained on her. You have no idea who this performance is for, but now you realise, belatedly, stupidly, that it might be _about_ you, but it’s not _for_ you at all. The budget for that impeccable suit makes so much more sense. If she cared about what you need and want, she would have kept her promise not to do this at all. Your heart is pounding so loudly against your ribcage you’re surprised Serena can’t hear the rattle. 

Finally, she shuts the fuck up, and sits back down, and you really fucking wish you were the type to just appreciate how amazing she is at giving speeches. It’s just that every single one has been a terrible topic you don’t want to deal with. But goddamn it, the way she looks at you afterwards, that apologetic crinkle of a smile, the hopeful glistening in her eyes is breaking you down again. You hate how it’s this easy to break. To dismantle. To be dismantled. All it takes is for you to lean in, just an inch, enough for her to sense the shifting the air and suddenly her lips are against yours, gently. Shit, you actually sigh into the kiss, and it feels like some sort of weird fucking bodily betrayal, because you’re still riled up about all this bullshit and how clearly she'd rather beg forgiveness than ask permission even today. As ever around her, your heart, mind, and body are out of sync. Actions speak louder than words, and right now, yours are treacherous.

"Excuse me." You barely recognize your own voice as it squeaks out. The air in here is too stuffy, choking, heavy. Like swimming through molasses. You don’t really take in the confusion on her face or pay much attention to the way her hands drop as if she's the one who was scalded by Aunt Lydia's punishment when you grab your small purse. “I need some air.”

It’s crisp out, like the feeling of a dull knife through warm butter. For a while, you just sit there, breathing deeply and trying to wrestle your emotions back into the boxes they belong. You’ve got to get a hold of yourself before going back in there. _Don’t let it go to your head_ , you remind yourself about the weird ecstasy that thrums through your veins when she’s near right now. Your body is nothing but a traitor, buzzing with lies and need. Your fingers shake as you raise a cigarette to your lips and flick the lighter, inhaling far more deeply than necessary and trembling as the smoke hits your lungs. Finally. Something about the nicotine and carcinogens leaking into your body at the moment starts to push out whatever other urges that have been piling up on your chest.

Three long pulls, in and out, and your shoulders begin to relax.

Footsteps come out behind you with the whinge of a door. It’s not Serena, it’s not even Moira. They're light, and a little hesitant.

Hannah sits down next to you without saying a word. She clasps her hands in her lap, chastely, like the good daughter of Gilead she was training to become. This must be very confusing for her, more than anybody else. Despite how both you and Luke have tried explaining that grownups change, and sometimes don’t love each other the same way all the time, she seems concerned. Perhaps she sees right through your mask as only children can. You squish your remaining cigarette under the toe of your shoe and breathe out a few times to clear the air.

“Hey, Banana,” you start, pulling her against you in the chill of the night air. “You should be inside where it’s warm.”

“So should you,” she counters immediately. You can’t help the smile that slips over your face at her confidence. Your baby girl is always looking out for you, even when you don’t think she’s paying attention. Such a sensitive little thing, and it hurts when you think of how wilted and beaten down she’s been. 

“You’re right,” you affirm. “Smart girl.”

She giggles. “Not smart, just cold.”

You pull her to you with both arms, nestling your cheek against her soft hair. “You’re a smart girl,” you murmur, never wanting her to doubt that ever. She has enough doubt in her life to have to worry about that too. “Daddy’s very smart and he gave that to you.”

She pauses for a second, her hand clenching at your dress. “Is he?” It’s probably not supposed to sound accusatory, and it’s just the bluntness of childhood. Of course Luke’s not very smart. He sat idly by and watched and waited for all your rights to be taken away, almost endorsing it as something that was sure to pass if everyone just had some patience and faith. He didn’t understand most of what you or Moira or your mother was saying that whole time. He couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and it barely mattered to him at all—until it was too late. So, no, Daddy maybe isn’t very smart in that way, but he is well-read and has a Masters degree, which is more than you. 

“Sure, he is.” The intricacies of this bold claim can be qualified later, when she’s older and you can explain the difference between kinds of intelligence.

 _Don’t turn into your Mommy_ , you long to say instead. _Mommy’s really stupid. Mommy can’t stop doing stupid things and never understands why she does_.

Maybe she senses this tension, or maybe she is just bored by the topic already, but Hannah moves out of your arms a little. “You look pretty today, Mommy.” 

She pauses and looks away for a second and chews on her bottom lip. The wheels are turning, trying to make sense of it all. “You looked happy.” She sneaks a glance at you. “Not now. But inside.”

You sigh, long and hollow. “Yeah.” It’s all you dare say to her because she’s too young to shoulder all your doubts and concerns, to deal with all your contradictions, or the complete rancid quagmire of your feelings towards the woman you literally just married. At least, if anything, you haven’t ruined weddings for Hannah. At least she’ll think of the first real wedding she ever saw and remember happiness, and laughter, and people just having a good time. There are no weird arguments—yet, anyway, and even her dad seems to be putting on a particularly brave face in light of his ex-wife and mother of his only child marrying a lesbian war criminal. You can’t imagine that’s an easy pill to swallow.

Do you risk that admission? To her, to yourself?

“I am happy.” Probably a lie but hopefully Hannah can't tell. At the very least, you're contented, comfortable, and safe. Maybe that is more important than happiness in the long run. You consider the fact that the only thing that prevents you from truly feeling happy is the haunting of the past shadows, nothing about your current situation. The guilt, the shame, the hypocrisy. Your own ruminations are the stumbling block between you and truly enjoying this. The thing is, for at least a few minutes inside this Italian restaurant, you simply had the moment and lived in it, and when that happened, everything was perfect: Serena next to you, her laugh and smile, her body so close. Your face was sore from smiling and the laughter you shared was, for once, completely genuine. When you manage to forget absolutely everything about the rest of your story with her, you can’t help but be honestly close to a facsimile of happy.

It is everything else that drapes itself around the edges of light. You’re just glad Hannah has managed to see those fleeting true moments with Serena instead. You don’t want to fuck up your daughters too much with this disaster of a relationship, and you certainly don’t want to set any sort of terrible examples. You worry about the future, and if Hannah or Nicole, or even this new baby, if they get into a toxic, unhealthy relationship—God forbid, abusive—and how you will have no ability to speak about it at all. After all, you’ve married one of your own abusers.

 _It was a different world_ , that stubborn little voice reminds you. _That isn’t who she is; that isn’t who you are. The world made you hard._ It excuses her and your own behaviour back then. It leans into complete erasure of the past. Hmm. Healthy.

“I like when you’re happy,” Hannah states, breaking your trance. She sounds wistful, as if your happiness isn’t a very common sight.

“Me too,” you sigh, wondering if there is any way to ensure it. You want that feeling back you just had inside the restaurant, with Serena before she put on that awful speech, surrounded by your family. Wine, you think. Wine is the answer. Isn’t it always?

(Isn’t that how this whole thing started?)

You rub her shoulders, warming her up a little. “You should get back inside before you catch a cold.”

She reluctantly stands and looks down on you, worried. “Are you coming too?” 

“In a minute.”

With a slow nod, your daughter agrees and wanders back inside where it’s warm. You take a deep breath, and then another and another. Soon, it feels less like a relaxation mechanism and more like you’re gasping for air on a rough sea. Turbulence is no stranger to the way you view this upside down post-Gilead world, but something about the rocking back and forth is bringing down reality like a crash of steel against the hull. It aches and groans, the yowl of bent metal echoing across empty space, just waiting for the collapse. You don’t know how much longer the ship can withstand it. So, you gasp again, shuddering.

“Hannah said you were out here.”

The quiet rumble of her voice is the crest of a wave. It washes everything away as quickly as it came with the loud tap of her heels, sounding just slightly annoyed at you, probably for not immediately swooning into her arms after that speech. There’s a second wave, just on the precipice of a larger moment, where she lingers over your shoulder, behind your back, and instead of the weighted shadow that usually spills across everything, it feels brighter somehow. Just for that fleeting hint of a second. A chill, probably from the cool air but maybe not, runs all the way from your lower back up and outwards to your fingertips, leaving a ripple of goosebumps all along your exposed skin. Without asking, she pulls off her blazer and drapes it around your shoulders, and then she settles next to you, closer than she needs to be but it’s exactly the right distance. She’s now your fucking _wife_ , after all. Is it romantic? Patronizing? Just plain kind and the normal, banal sort of shit that people just do for each other when they care without picking apart every little action? You can no longer assess her motives with any sort of certainty but you really hope, in the spirit of the evening, it's the foremost option. There's an opening to thank her, but the words lodge themselves in the back of your throat and you merely cough instead, staring morosely at the stomped out, half-smoked cigarette on the pavement at your feet.

It’s nice, the silence. The fact she doesn’t feel it necessary to shove words into all the rough spaces is a blessing because talking to Hannah is one thing, fumbling through your actual emotions is another. You work together like this. The wordless abyss. The touch instead. Words only complicate things these days, or any day. You’re too apt to say the wrong thing or hear the wrong thing, or even be forced to think about the wrong thing, and so is she.

Silence provides a blissful, if temporal, reprieve. 

Slowly, her fingers slide out, dipping under the hand you’re resting on your leg. Such large hands she has. So capable of holding so much. Instead, she snakes your fingers together. Your new wedding ring glints in the streetlights but feels so heavy, cumbersome and new. 

You feel too weak for this; it’s been too much for too long. You squeeze her hand, thinking perhaps Serena needs something too to tether her back to the reality you’ve just created. Slowly, your head falls against her shoulder.

Your eyes slip shut, even as she begins to speak.

“So she became her wife, and she loved her: and she was comforted.”

You think it’s probably from the Bible, but twisted with a new sort of Serena Joy flair for reinterpretation and historical revision. Then, the gentle weight of her cheek presses against your head and you’re not sure how long you just sit in the quiet like that.

She gets it. Trapped. The two of you have no choice but this.

Eventually, when she leads you back inside, your hand tightly wrapped around her disfigured one, a familiar song drifts through the speakers as if she had planned it down to the second. Why this one? Why now? It was from a time when you hadn’t even considered the way it would feel to press your mouth against hers. It strikes you that maybe she had, back then. You’d never bothered to ask when it began for her. Moira shoots you a perplexed glance as you look at her, wondering why anybody would play ‘Easy’ by the Commodores, or any similar breakup song, for their first dance at a wedding.

Only you and Serena know.

For some reason, it’s perfect like that. You don’t want anybody else understanding what it means, or having to explain it, or even if you did, having to witness those judgemental or pitying stares that say, “Oh, poor June, still stuck in that Gilead mindset. Why can’t she just get over it?”

No, that night… It was something different. All those nights in Fred’s study changed things. You’d complimented her with no direct attempt at manipulation, she’d been appreciative of your assistance (your company, your discretion), she belayed her gratitude in a multitude of ways, over and over for days. The only thing she didn’t do then is throw you onto the bed and ravish you. Nor did she give you your freedom and daughter back, but who’s counting?

Serena leads; she likes that, so you only slightly resentfully allow it. Whatever twinges of discomfort you have pass quickly though as she pulls you closer, cradling your hand against her chest. You inhale the smell of her fading, softening perfume. Why do your eyes close? Why do you curl up against her as if she’s the safest place you’ve ever been? Why does being held by her—of all the people in the entire world—do this to you? Why do your cheeks still seem to ache from smiling earlier? Why is the baby kicking like it’s dancing with you? She nuzzles at you, her nose pressed alongside your forehead, and you think you can feel her place a soft kiss there but at this point the haze is so thick you’re not even certain what is real any longer. Nostalgia, perhaps.

This is it, you think. _This is it._

You’re actually content. Right now, if you were a braver person, perhaps you’d even claim to be happy. 

* * *

You remember talking to Emily before, talking about Mayday, about rebellion, about bringing down Gilead. Turns out you didn’t really do any of that. She ran a Guardian over with a car, killed a Wife, and stabbed Aunt Lydia before pushing her down the stairs. She hadn’t even planned to leave Gilead alive. You, however, cut and ran as soon as you could get Hannah. Perhaps a real hero would have stayed and fought, and put aside her own needs for those of the greater good. If you’re entirely honest with yourself, you’ve done very little for any cause but your own since escaping. Instead, you’re selfishly rather content to play house and gather together all the broken shards of the life you once had to make a new one with her.

All the lies you once told yourself about being on the outside, about fighting, about revolution, they don’t seem so important anymore.

Forget about Moira, even Serena has done more than you to destroy Gilead as it is now, and that doesn't exactly feel good. Quiet shame boils up when you consider her out there at rallies, at speaking and teaching events, writing articles and books, and spilling all her knowledge to American and Canadian governments. She's going for the jugular while you sit back and watch the world carry on from the ease of your cozy Canadian semi-detached home. Comfortable has always been how you’d describe your life, until Gilead and all that came with it. Until then, you lived without any real challenge, or restriction. Maybe that’s why it sticks with you so. A terrible, nightmarish blip of discomfort, like a fever dream, except not, because you have scars, physical and otherwise, that bare it out. That say you were there. You survived it. You clawed your way back to something like comfort.

Sometimes though, you lie in bed with her— _your wife_ , both of you reading in silence and you glance over. Her hair will be tied back in a sloppy ponytail, stray locks loose and free. She’ll chew on the end of a pen or her nails, as she remains locked inside words. You still notice her missing fingers. That hasn't changed no matter how you might wish otherwise. A fixed mark. Another symbol of her revolutionary behaviour. You have no such mutilations. As you gaze at her those nights, you forgive yourself little by little. It's not even an argument that without you, she wouldn't be here. And if she's not here, Gilead wouldn't be quaking, cracking at its very foundations. You gave her attention first, and measured sympathy, followed by very reluctant affection. You gave her Nicole. You gave her solace and sex. Then, somewhere along the way, you ripped the coldness from her chest, and latched on to her heart with both hands, squeezing it, crushing it, owning it as yours. 

You gifted her something she'd been lacking her whole life, and never even realised. Worse still, you don’t remember when that happened or how you even allowed it.

It sounds painfully saccharine and trite, cliched even, to your own ears but maybe the biggest revolution was the act of love (or whatever it is), especially in the face of Gilead, in the face of hate. Caring for Serena Joy Waterford exactly as she is in whatever small, limited, tragically unromantic way you can, with everything she’s done, is the ultimate rebellion against a world that insists in every way possible that women are empty vessels incapable of deep thought and complex emotions. The same world that believes that she specifically is a reigning demon, incapable of receiving love, and certainly not giving it back. Unforgivable. _Irredeemable_.

That’s your simple, difficult contribution to the building revolution.

It’s as good an excuse as any.

* * *

_Fuck._

She’s all over you, everywhere. Every inch of your body seems overtaken, occupied. A frazzled excitement is rushing through your nerves, all over. Your body is literally screaming for hers, a fierce, primeval cry for attention. Your hips buck forward to crush against her upper thigh, leaving a slick smudge on her bare skin as evidence of just how much you want her, right now, in whatever way she’s willing to please you. You will take almost anything she has to give, and each time since you’ve been married, sex has been this same strange blend of intensity and madness on a level previously unknown.

“Serena, _please_ ,” you groan, barely containing the simpering desperation. Your short nails dig into the exposed flesh of her ass, and part of you thinks you actually are about to sob. You are literally throbbing, everywhere. Her lips are mere ghosts across your clavicle, across your neck, over your ear. Each time her breasts drift across yours, there’s no repressing the way your back arches to relieve yourself with soft pressure, hot sparks flying across your chest with the feel of her hard nipples and yours. She doesn’t give in easily though. Apparently, you need to work for it just as hard tonight.

The way she betrays herself, however, is what gives you hope for her impending surrender. Tiny moans keep escaping her mouth every time you manage to touch your skin to hers, and when she gives up for just a moment and presses her mons against you instead, the resulting growl of relief reverberates deep through both your bodies. She’s wet too and so ready for all this to be over.

Her hand, as it finally grasps your hip and slides up feels like a literal fireball, searing heat through your entire abdomen. _Just a little higher_ , you want to beg, have her cup and squeeze your breast, to give you something— _anything_ back. You’re actually whimpering, shamelessly, as if it’s physically painful that she’s not just ravaging you immediately. _Touch me more, you bitch_.

“Jesus Christ.” Her voice is almost a despairing mewl, and her mouth comes down hard against the heavy pulse of your neck to distract herself. Your fingers bore even deeper into her skin, roughly bringing her down despite the baby bump, so the both of you can finally approach something resembling respite. 

She’s trembling so noticeably and her hips rock against you, legs intertwined, your entire bodies flush together at last, as best as you can manage in her state. It’s not the first time you’re thankful that despite what it may say about the health of the baby, her baby bump is smaller than it could be. The doctor assures her that it’s not necessarily a bad thing and some women barely look pregnant even at nine months while others balloon up like a whale. It allows you to get so much closer than you could be otherwise. 

The simultaneous moan that erupts at the contact is nothing short of pure rapture. This is what it is like, you’re absolutely certain. Your hands are finally free to grab hold of her face, tugging her mouth to yours. It bruises, that’s how much you need her kiss, shivering deeply like you’re sucking in her soul.

Sex is not meant to feel _this_ good. This is fucking illegal. This is heroin. _This is God_. 

And you haven’t even come yet.

“Take it easy,” she mumbles, wavering and trying to extricate herself out of your python snare slightly as you leave angry red trails of raised skin across her back. It’s obvious that she wishes she wouldn’t have to, but things being what they are with that little life inside her, she has no choice. Her chest is flushed bright red, as are her cheeks, and there’s no mistaking the sheen of sweat building between your bodies.

Nothing seems more Herculean a task right now than letting her go, even a little, and giving yourself some breathing room. Luckily, she has a way to cool down the mood that always works. Always.

The edges of her mouth turn up and something wicked flickers in her eyes, something you’ve seen before only a handful of times. As she pulls back, her fingers drift out, fluttering along your hot skin, right along your ribs where it’s most sensitive. The resulting spasms briefly knock out any lust, because you loathe the feeling of being tickled, especially at a time like this. But two can play at this game, surely, and you learned the hard way that Serena is more ticklish than anybody you’ve ever met. You can’t quite call it her biggest weakness, but it’s certainly one of them. As you convulse with giggles you’re really trying to withhold, your hands latch onto her and return her terrible favour, until she flops down next to you, half-livid and half-begging for mercy. 

As she wriggles away, you snarl through your own laughter. “Serves you right, asshole.”

She grins, that knowing fucking smirk of conceit. The sentiment doesn’t hold any weight however, because faster than you’re ready to admit, your entire body is undulating again, squirming to get closer to her as her own hands stall. The laughter shifts to heavy breathing like somebody has flicked a switch on you both. Fingers tangle in her hair, dragging her lips back to a nipple and you let out a deep sigh, feeling her tongue sweep over it. There’s a zip of electricity, a gasp erupts out of you. 

Maybe you’re too demanding because she twists out of your grasp. 

“Can't you just let me,” she pleads, unable to finish the thought. She wants total control this time; she wants to save herself from the distraction of your desire. She gets like this occasionally: absolutely intent on only pleasing you, only focusing on you, only making you come, over and over like some sort of penance she’s working through. Each orgasm is a prayer bead on her rosary of absolution. Usually, however, she’s more greedy and wants your attention too, eventually. She normally cracks the second you slide your fingers between her legs or brush your swollen lips along her pulse point. It happens even quicker if you moan while doing it because nothing breaks Serena Joy easier than your purposeful interest. She aims to please. Always.

You’re still smiling, teasing each other in just the right ways, nipping, fighting back at her desire for control the way she likes. It’s a play you learnt the lines to long ago.

Or you’d thought you had.

Right now, she is a bit more impatient than you’re accustomed to, a little less agreeable to you pushing her limits. “June, let me—” Her voice is sterner, but still unsteady and her laugh is clipped closer to the root. 

A thumb of yours sneaks between your bodies, tweaking her incredibly sensitive nipple and drawing out a stifled howl. There are parts of Serena that are so very primitive still, as if without her religion and her politics and her poise, the beast is free to terrorize the placid visage she had imagined for herself. It’s not even a tease but a necessity as you raise your leg to nudge hers even further apart, putting pressure against the broiling heat there. The sensation must be too much for her now because she thrusts down and a guttural moan croaks from her throat. She’s more animal than human. And you don’t suppose you’re much better, not really, and especially not as you lie in a puddle of your own making.

“Fuck!” she wails, low as she can manage, her eyes squeezed shut and a furrowed brow. “ _June_.” 

It’s hard enough to breathe when she curses like this, but when she adds your name to it, something inside of you can’t keep your sanity intact. All you can think about is fucking her, hard and endlessly until she can never stop swearing and saying your name, over and over. To see and hear her so completely shattered and all vestiges of her confinement gone, it’s liberating. It’s the hottest thing you’ve ever fucking heard. 

“I said—” she tries but balks as you push your thigh against her again, palm her breast firmly, and grab her ass with your other hand all at once. She’s so close, she’s trembling like a leaf.

Then it’s as if a wind has swept in from the north, because she’s firmer, more taut and manages just enough distance to break whatever impending doom she was headed for. You know she wants to be in charge today, she wants to make you cry her name, and she wants to do it _first._ She wants what Serena always wants: power and control. She knows too, how close to the edge you’re already dangling, but this is how you two always have been. Always stubborn, rams with locked horns. There’s a vulgar rush of damp warmth between your legs again at the thought, and the way her body is shaking under your hands as she resists you with every single fibre of her being. It’s leeching all the life from her and replacing it with pure need. Meeting her carnal gaze, you smile a little, and she returns it, leaning that little bit more against you.

"Let me," she growls severely, very much on the verge of being completely, deadly serious in her intent. 

This is all part of the game.

Let her? No way. Make her? That’s more your style. But you hadn’t known how dangerous this little game could quickly turn.

For a split second, you don’t even realise what she’s done, as it's such a little thing, really.

You only know the way your body recoils, the way your chest erupts in a blood-curdling scream, and the lashing flood of sheer terror through your veins. She’s so much bigger, a lumbering monster with her giant hands clamped around your wrists, pushing them down against the mattress. Your attempt at escape is cut off by the fact she’s paralysed in place pressing her weight down, staring with confused and wildly panicked eyes at you as you are flailing and sobbing under her. Your heart feels too fast—much too fast—you’re going to die. It _hurts_ , everything hurts, you can feel it everywhere in your body all over again. Oh God, the singed memory of her restraining you, your wrists, against a mattress flares back to life, regardless of whether she meant it this way or not, it no longer matters.

It’s _her_.

She’s doing this.

_Again._

The moment the realisation hits her, she leaps back with a spryness you didn’t expect for a pregnant woman at all, and rests on the bed far from you, crossing her arms in some shivering modesty. She merely sits there as you cry. As you yowl in pain like a wounded animal, more like. It’s a blessing probably that nobody else is home or else a household would be pounding at the door. Through your tears and the dizzy vertigo of fear, you think you can see her gasping, equally horrified at the knowledge of what has just happened. Is she crying too? It doesn’t even matter anymore.

All you know is the how fucking suffocating it is in this room—what should be your safe bedroom and with your safe wife. She’s not, and this isn’t that place anymore. It’s spoiled, marked, ugly. A dark and hollow space, like a four-post bed with a blue velveteen duvet in an icy room with the lingering scent of stale cigarette smoke.

_The natural way is the best way._

Her words echo in your head, ramming into your brain repeatedly until the headache builds to such a point that it may actually shatter your skull.

Oh, God, _no_. Her hands crushing your wrists. The memory is so present and it hurts so much. The shadows have weight again and they’re snapping your bones, one at a time, as you gulp for air that doesn't seem to exist anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” is all you hear from her, even though you can’t see her. With such blurred vision, you can’t see anything at all. She sounds so small and confused, not an animal at all, but not quite a human either. She sounds like a living ghost of regret, as one would whisper curses to the empty ocean when lost at sea. Adrift and rocking on rough waves, you’re just as sea-sick.

Soon, the only sound is your shuddering breathing as you yank the duvet to your chest, trying to ignore her presence entirely as your body begins to lockdown and freeze over. Shut down entirely and protect itself against her. It's so fucking familiar.

Block it all out, block the world out, block yourself out. You're not your body, you repeat. _This isn't happening to me; this isn't happening to June_.

But all the affirmations in the world aren't working anymore. This was supposed to be over. You’d made your peace with it, packed it up, sealed up the memory, trapped it somewhere deep in the sticky blackness of your mind so you could have everything else you need. 

“Get out.” It’s nothing more than a pathetic sob, something painfully sad and in need of comfort, but she reaches for her robe anyway. 

You’re so goddamn scared of her.


	5. of babylon unto jerusalem

There were once two Serenas in Gilead: the dry, treacherous, invulnerable effigy she put out to the world, and the other one you knew behind locked doors. The public and private personas. A part of you appreciated the duality of her nature, as it was never boring, never allowed you to become too complacent or comfortable in her presence. Any minute, one or the other could pop out and ruin everything, and frankly, it often did. 

Nature has all sorts of false dichotomies: night and day, warm and cold, black and white, dead and alive. Most things, however, are more akin to spectra, and the sliding scale of change allows for so much more subtlety and flexibility. These opposite forces were once the territory of ancient gods and demons, but you’ve simplified, desecrated them down to nature instead, because with wisdom comes mankind’s fall. The true forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge was this (or something like it): even God and Satan are part of a spectrum. There’s evil in all things, yet there’s divinity in all things too.

Night never just bursts into day; it is a process of slowly softening shades of colour, and those same photons make up the entire visible light spectrum that creates both black and white. Cold and hot? Again, there is an in-between, not at all liminal, but often hovering around the periphery of distinguishing the difference. Humans have made up all sorts of words to explain the points all along the way, each one slightly different than the last. Why would they do that? Each singular moment is a threshold of transformation from one substance into the next, onwards. Hot to cold, love to hate, day to night...

Alive to dead (and back again, on a Mobius strip).

What was “life” in Gilead? It was difficult to feel it there. You often felt more dead than alive, but never strictly one or the other. A scientist may argue that life and death are distinct categorical definitions, and one necessarily negates the other. You'd suspect however, that hypothetical scientist never was a woman in Gilead, nor has felt a god’s indifferent laughter. 

There are swathes of time where no memories exist. Nothing. Just a blank, black space where a life should be, but the vivid timestamps that mark out all that came before and all that came after are gone. Surely a living thing would remember being alive, would feel it? Interspersed with the nothingness, were specks of light, of memory, of tangibility. It could be just trauma, you suppose, and a trick of the mind to protect itself from life. But then too, if life is that deadly, what is it but a symptom of death itself? 

There was pain, and then nothing, and then suffering, and then nothing again. Then Moira as the opposite of pain, then nothing. Then Nick, and Nicole, and then nothing some more. Then, there was Serena who felt like a black hole and the sun all at once, the life and death of a star in one contradictory package unlike anything else you'd felt in Gilead or anywhere else, if you’re being honest. You felt vitally alive, thriving, and yet, rotting from the inside out. A walking corpse on the best of days. To claim alive and dead are not a spectrum is to be unaware of Serena Joy Waterford, and the ghouls haunting that house.

It wasn't until her that you became aware of your own multitudes, because you began existing as many different people as well, separately, not merely June with her obedient Handmaid mask in place. Never truly both at once. It was all or nothing. You were either Aunt Lydia's perfect brainwashed doll, or you were a seething version of yourself that just happened to live resentfully inside a red and white costume and play the part assigned. It's why Nick never had any difficulty understanding you, because it always was _you_ there in front of him, no matter the day or time. The red garb was just a cover, not your essence. 

But Serena... There’s one word for her multitude: temptation.

She licked her way over your skin, roughly, carelessly yet efficaciously drawing out something new and primal from so deep inside you, something that Nick had never even brushed against. It was hate and it was passion at once. A looming thunderhead, threatening a storm on a warm summer evening, and the way the hot reds flash off otherwise beautiful blues and purples. Your mind slipped and skidded around, like a colt on ice, trying to find purchase at either end of some spectrum you still couldn’t see. But nevertheless, you existed. Hate wasn’t entirely genuine, and never could it be love, but when you felt your blood rushing in your chest, heard the waves in your eardrums, and sucked in stuttering sighs against the satin bedsheets in that fucking blue bedroom of hers, there was desire and suffering and rage and comfort all together, shifting one moment to the next, back and forth. You had been set adrift. You were June, and Offred, and suddenly someone else who fluttered on a breeze above the masks, in between the cracks, over and around the stones of what must be.

You were suddenly the June you once knew, and a June you didn’t know existed, and the existence of everything in between, all at the same moment in time. 

Lucifer became a demon during his fall from grace to the underworld, and a fall isn’t just one thing or another either. It necessitates an action, being present in it. It’s a process, it’s movement between one thing and the next. It’s another fucking spectrum. None of those things is static, and neither are you. Neither is she. Neither is whatever you shared, and continue to share. There is no such thing as duality anymore when the poles no longer exist. Satan is dead; God is dead.

The more indistinct life becomes however, the more you lose yourself in her, unsure where she ends and you begin. When her name slips out of your mouth, it echoes through a cold mist, sounding like something between a prayer and a curse. Oddly fitting, perhaps, since that's exactly what being with her feels like. 

You can't stand much more of this. Your feet are constantly slipping over slick rocks, your hands grasping at too fragile branches as you stumble, everything shifting and tossing in the winds, and nowhere ever feels solid any longer, as much as you desperately try to fight against your body's new revulsion. You’ve lost all stability, and certainly all sense of yourself. There's no way to continue to feel all things, to be all things, all at once. You need to put her and this shit back into a box, and label it forgotten. Because right now, all you can see when you look at her and your life is Satan's side of the spectrum.

* * *

You don’t do jealous.

It’s ugly, pointless, and nobody ever feels good about it. It’s for weak and insecure people only. Not to mention, jealous people do stupid things and look pathetic. You swear you aren’t trying to think about Serena, but you can’t help how the image of her pops into your mind when considering how asinine jealousy is. She hates everyone, and would be more than happy if none of your ex-lovers ever came within 30 miles of you again. She tolerates Luke only out of a selfish desire not to annoy you, and her false politeness towards him is never overlooked. Moira, your best friend, also would be shipped away in Serena’s perfect world, probably. Again, she leaves Moira alone because she knows that an ultimatum would be her downfall, not yours. Pure stupidity borne out of delusion, really.

Regardless, your hard-earned wisdom doesn’t prevent that same slow-acting poison to creep up on you, lurking over your shoulder when you’re alone with your thoughts, and whisper its sinister paranoias into your ear. Why it has awoken now seems obvious perhaps with all the discomfort pulsing through your veins when she's around, ever since that night. No apology. No concern. Just typical avoidance from your surly and distant new wife. Her reaction has been so predictable that maybe it should be laughable, but instead, you fume, silently, and tremble when nobody is looking. The petty rumble shakes the foundation of everything you thought you'd had.

And the target of your unwanted ire is Agent Mark Tuello. 

It’s ridiculous, your rational brain knows. Tuello is a colleague of hers in a loose sense, an ally, a trusted friend perhaps. Even so, she's a liar and a fraud as your wedding ceremony proved with glaring clarity, and you don’t appreciate the way he hangs around and calls her at all hours of the night, or how occasionally she cuts short time with you to run out to see him. What can be so goddamn important about her latest political stunt that she sneaks out of dinner early and doesn’t come home for hours?

Something scrapes at the back of your eyes about it all, about how close they seem. 

Maybe it’s really because you sort of liked being the only person in the world that Serena had, the only person who could stand her, the only person she could turn to. Is that bad?

So, when she comes home from yet another one of these odd midday dates with her incredibly attractive American boyfriend with his perfect job and perfect jaw and perfect fashion sense, you’re already seething. You’ve never liked being the third wheel, and you’re not about to start for Tuello. Three people is never, _ever_ , a happy marriage. History tells you so, but thanks to Gilead, you know so. Painfully. Worse still, he’s exactly her type too, minus the war criminal tendencies, of course. He looks like he played varsity soccer and scored 180 on his LSATs, maybe even rescued kittens on the side and definitely goes to church every Sunday, even in the dead of winter. You absolutely loathe how she lets him near Nicole because the picture of the three of them is so absolutely reflective of the long-lost American dream. There would be none of the oily, dark smears of her past with him in Gilead like she has with you; they’d be gorgeous together, like some J Crew TV commercial dream family. Straight, beautiful, cookie-cutter representatives of the ultimate ideal she wrote about in her goddamn first book.

You’d never felt such simmering fury towards her and Fred, and they were actually married. Maybe that was because as soon as you entered any room she was in, her attention would lock on you, no matter whether he was in her orbit or not. There was never any shred of doubt what she wanted then.

Surely, her life here would be so much easier if she left you and this tangled, fucked up attempt at a relationship for something pure and wholesome, and there’d be no reason for her to stay in Canada either. Treason and coconuts, she’d told you once. Her own baby. Those were the things he’d offered her. Now, she’s pregnant with her own child and could easily start over again in Hawaii with her handsome all-American husband. You could try again with Luke.

Part of you really does want her to leave, to smack divorce papers down on the kitchen table one morning and just end it all. You wouldn’t fight her; your hand would slide easily over the pages and adorn your signature on them with pleasure. It would ensure that you had a good reason to hate her again or at least a justifiable one. There’s nothing good about this.

 _Irrational_ , Moira had said to you when you briefly hinted at your beliefs about Serena and him. But is it? The paranoia just snowballs in your mind, so easily that it’s frightening. In the end, all this proves is you still don’t trust Serena, that you _can’t_ trust her. Nothing about her behaviour since your wedding day has given you any reason to think otherwise. She covers it up well, but everything is a performance of some kind to Serena, for her audience, for her own ego, for Tuello, for Fred, for Gilead.

The first thing she does is dump her bag down on the table, and then the second is how she waddles over to you, as if nothing is wrong at all, and brushes a light kiss to your lips, saying hello in the process and you shudder at the contact instead. Your fingers graze your own wrist with memory. Then she’s busying herself with tea. Clueless. She probably just doesn’t want to face the fact that she’s fallen for him so she goes through the motions of life with you just as it always has been. Liar.

As the spoon clinks against the side of her mug, she turns on you, eyes flashing. “What is wrong with you today?”

Her voice is accusatory and impatient already, on edge. Why has it become such a common occurrence to argue? It seems that’s all you do with her these days. The incessant bickering, about anything you or she can think of.

“Nothing.” It comes out as a pout instead of haughty as you’d intended. “Have fun with _Mark_?”

Snorting as she pours some more milk into her tea, she shakes her head. “Not exactly how I’d describe it.” Liar.

It’s too chilly in here. Erin must have fucked with the thermostat again as you cross your arms across your chest. “Oh yeah? You’re the writer. What adjectives would you use then?”

For a moment, she seems paralysed, just staring down at her steaming mug, her knuckles white around it. Then, slowly, her head raises and Mrs. Waterford flickers dangerously behind her eyes as they narrow. You arch an eyebrow back at her, challenging her to continue explaining herself. She doesn't quite fall for it this time but it's oh so familiar in the tension it raises. Instead, her voice comes out restrained and cold, holding a thin threat beneath it. “What exactly is your problem?”

You can’t fucking help yourself now that the floodgates have opened. “How is Mark anyway? Is he doing good?”

Her impatience is starting to bubble up. “ _What?_ ”

“Did he—did he get to feel the baby kick today?” That was always something you’d convinced yourself you had no issue with: that time you’d walked into the living room to see him with his big, beefy hand on Serena’s belly, them grinning together as the baby kicked for him. You’ve been a mother too, and you’re well aware that 99% of the time, that sort of exchange means nothing. There are no hidden messages, no deeper meanings, no flirtations. Every person always wants to touch you, to molest your pregnant stomach and think it means something when they feel a baby move. But somehow, that image had stuck like glue into your memory and you loathe it. 

She’s the one with the pregnancy hormones, and yet you’re the one going mad about the tiniest things and you can’t stop. Like you’re watching yourself from the other side of the room, you just keep going. “Bet he liked that, huh? Felt nice?”

She scoffs, loudly, completing the sound with a sneer towards you. “Actually, halfway through our _business meeting_ ,” she growls, rigorously emphasizing the nature of their date, “He had to drive me to the clinic because I started cramping and bleeding heavily— _again_.” Liar. She glares at you. “But you know how it is. Just a little bit of fun on the side, as always.” Just to drive it home, she leans in, and for a second you remember how much bigger she is than you, and her voice comes out rancid and sarcastic and far too close to that Gilead Wife from your lived nightmare. “He’s so good to me, don’t you think?”

You press your lips together and return her glare, unflinching even though you know how stupid you must sound. You hold each other’s glare for a long minute.

“For fuck’s sake, June,” she sighs sharply, rolling her eyes, and stalks out of the room. You notice the slight limp in her step.

And that’s why you hate jealousy. It turns you into a certified imbecile and your stubbornness makes you too paralysed to retract any of it. It seems you’re intent on finding anything you can to hate her for, even if you have to make it up.

* * *

> _I was willing to destroy all other women simply to rid my burning blood of the way I felt inside towards them. Loathing punctuated my nightmares with how much their potential scared me and willed me, without my consent, along paths I’d never seen on a map before. Follow the Lamb of God and all will be well, they said, but the words of the Lord were of no guidance in my time of need. The verses rang hollowly against what I craved. Everyone else thought of demons and monsters by their caricatures in the Book of Revelation, seven-headed horned serpents and beast riders on black, white, red, and ashen horses. I only heard the cursed name of_ _Nebuchadrezzar, destroyer of nations. The writhing monster inside impatiently recited my shame in the dark spaces between the pastor’s sermons as I sat statuesque in the pew: the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out._
> 
> _Yet the women lived, as they do and always will. Their whispers, hundreds of them echoing over and over, claimed, “This is who you’ll always be”. The women stayed there, right in front of me, staring with their shining eyes, hidden under white bonnets, reflecting blue woolen shawls, grey like their aprons. Like a slow tsunami coming up from the horizon, it didn’t stop and they only became louder and their faces more vivid. Nobody can stand in front of such pressure and survive, so I attempted to destroy myself with them._
> 
> _To me, it remained a gruelling test of the Lord, a cancer, and like all cancer, it came to me without my knowing and invaded my body against my will, becoming one with me so intimately that I had no choice but to turn against myself._
> 
> _If I couldn’t destroy them entirely for what they did to me, I could remove everything about me that made me respond. Every time I looked at them—and at her—aggressively waving my own sin in my face, I picked and prodded and raged. I blamed her, and them, for what I thought they’d made of me whilst I prayed nightly for deliverance that never came. Before I had taken hostage words from my own grasp, I had fixated on the tangible reality of cancer and poured over impenetrable textbooks instead of scripture._
> 
> _People can survive cancer, they're absolved by a merciful God and cured of it as if it was merely a smear on a dirty window. So, I thought, yes, let's remove this malignant, vile growth._
> 
> _Buried within the jargon of medical books was the obscure truth that cancer is not something separate from the body, and like the Devil it is no easy task to excise; it's part of you, but slightly different, a little more primitive. It’s like the unholy revenant a person can become after a few too many tequila shots: it’s still them, but disorganized, less refined, and less confined._
> 
> _This arcane reality was still a part of me even if I was unwilling to accept it, whispering the name of the king of Babylon in the loneliness of the night. I was desperate to push it away, like the shameful memory of a drunken night out. It was a terrorist, or even more so, a parasite in my body feeding on the darkness. It was something that exorcism and willpower could certainly dispose my mind of, but only at the risk of destroying myself in the process._
> 
> _There's no smooth pill to swallow and no simple surgery to remove the growth. It's a process of intricate, exacting, compartmental destruction, beginning with denial and ending with potentially fatal poison; that’s the acceptance they never tell you about in the books, holy or not._
> 
> _I picked at small pieces, initially. My ghosts were playing the dusty, faded game of Operation that was in my uncle’s basement as a child. It began with a rib bone—as most of my knowledge had, then the ankle bone maybe, Adam’s apple, a broken heart._
> 
> _It got worse, and more difficult the fewer pieces remained and that damned buzzer kept reminding me that I was failing. The more I struggled, the more I hated, the more fury I enacted against her—them—myself, the deeper the cancer spread, burrowing itself into my very marrow._
> 
> _Behold, Behemoth,  
> _ _which I made as I made you._

You put down the draft papers, without reading the rest, regretting already how you had grudgingly agreed to edit this for her especially when you can hardly bare her presence. You know how the story goes, her lies and how it ends or at least where it leads, since nothing is quite over yet. She’s chewing the end of her pen, blue eyes focused intently on your face as if everything is normal, obviously searching for any sort of hint of your thoughts. But which June is she looking at? Her editor, her wife, or her Handmaid? Each one of them exists in you, all with differing opinions. Spectra, right? 

"Are you sure this is what you want to publish?" It's not that it isn't true or well-written, but you're not certain this is what people need to hear from her. You certainly don't. The excuses and justifications here pale in comparison to the atrocities she's been complicit in. Is she really saying an entire country lies in waste, partly because Serena Joy Waterford didn't want to accept herself in the image that her omnipotent God made her? 

A darkness shrouds her face, the extant light dimming in her eyes at the veiled criticism as she huffs. "It's the truth."

"But is it a truth that needs to be heard?"

She waits, swallows, and looks down at the pen in her hand, then flexes her other hand, the one with the missing fingers. "Is there another one?"

You suppose there are probably many truths, or versions of it. There has to be at least one more palatable than what's on these pages, because this is going to offend so many people, comparing her struggle with her sexuality to a disease, and placing the blame of her entire being and all of her hideous actions on it. Then again, that’s sort of Serena’s entire existence. Nothing she does is inoffensive, to most people.

To you, though? Well, you’ve always been a different story. That's why you're still here, even despite everything.

A shrug is all you can offer because, really, it’s not your truth to tell. She’s given you a chapter all your own to fill with whatever you deem necessary and good. (It’s going to be about your daughters.) Moira, too, she’s got her own chapter. Other women, from all sorts of corners of Gilead who now are free in Canada were invited to contribute. That was the whole point of this book, to tell everyone’s stories this time around, not just her own. She was merely a curator of memories of pain. It could be admirable if it wasn’t so transparent how pandering she’s being. 

Her gaze flits away, back down to her pages with your massacre of red scribbles stretched over them. A long sigh envelops the silence, but she doesn’t tempt you with argument.

Something occurs to you that causes your body to wobble just a little with the memory of her lips on yours, craving and breathless, her body clawing at yours. A lonely, warped beast trapped inside the body of an even bigger beast, seeking only to devour itself. Or even the way she sometimes cries after sex. She's always laughing through the tears, and blames it on endorphins. Sure, you know that's a thing, but she also isolates herself with you, as if she may accidentally infect someone else. She shies away from showing casual physical affection to you in front of the kids, and you once thought that was just modesty or her strange obsession with decorum. 

“Do you still think you have a disease?” A brief pause, and you can feel your chest tighten, your voice taking a slightly higher pitch because the idea materializes into real, physical _hurt_. It feels like her hands around your throat did. “Do you think _I_ do?” 

Sin, well, you know her answer to that one already. She's condemned in the eyes of her God, but He doesn't seem to have much say in anything these days.

The question, and its pointed derision, seem to catch her off-guard. Perhaps a normal person would have immediately come up with a reassuring answer, but Serena doesn’t. She stares, for a little longer than is comfortable, and her glare is inscrutable. You’re not playing a game, or putting down a trap for her. It’s actually a completely genuine question for once and her eyes drop again, head tilting to the side. Is that a wince? Or your imagination?

The longer the silence continues, the more discomfort you feel at her lack of a response. She sees this—what you have with her—as an incurable, terminal cancer. Horrifying and unwanted.

You glower at her for creating this tension, your voice lowering. “Serena.”

“I love you,” is all she says, hurriedly, flatly, with a buckle of regret, but without meeting your eyes. You’ve never heard the words, never fucking wanted to hear them from her, even if you know their truth. That’s not what you need, and it’s not what she needs to say especially not after the other day, with that flashback. There’s no need for you to be placated like some sort of petulant child. You hate that somewhere in your chest, something is exploding and something else is screaming, a full-on riot. You should have been prepared for this sort of game from her; one where she makes the rules and you’re just along for the ride. The resentment at her casual words burns into your chest, because she certainly knows how that sort of misplaced declaration is powerful, and how it would toss you from your mission and dump you unceremoniously into panic mode about your own response. 

It works.

Of course it does. She’s been waiting to play this trump card for months, probably.

Just to make things even worse, after all that, she doesn’t answer your question at all.

* * *

You'd thought it was bad after she pinned you to the bed a week ago, and how you've rippled with disgust each time she comes too close. Skin hangs off your bones, feeling too big, too heavy to carry around, dirty and in desperate need of scrubbing; nothing in your body feels quite real any longer, and you tremble far too easily at the smallest things. Now, with her horrible admission of love, you can barely look at her all day, and you haven’t let her touch you in even the most innocuous way for three days since. Not even in bed at night, not even when it’s pitch black and you can easily pretend she’s somebody else. There’s nothing you want less than her hands against you, with her mind thinking it’s all because of a disease. Some contagious, rotten sickness that lingers and crawls just under her skin and bleeds out into you, and back again. Endlessly poisonous. A serpent eating its own tail.

It really shouldn’t be such a big deal, and you’re not sure why you’ve taken her nasty little game so heavily to heart. It’s just wrong. That’s all. Anybody who can throw around words of love as a weapon to win an argument is not someone you can picture yourself with. How carelessly callous she can be, even after everything and despite what she claims is her truth. Despite who she claims to love, in light of her pinching your wrists again.

She’s sitting on the far end of the sofa idly stroking her baby bump, and you’re in the armchair in your pyjamas, as far as physically possible away from her in the small room, something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Moira. You haven’t said a single word to the woman who is allegedly your wife, instead only choosing to engage Moira in whatever inane dialogue you can drum up as an excuse not to get too lost inside your own angry thoughts. Eventually, Moira must tire of the tension because she groans in exhaustion, says her goodnights, and heads upstairs to bed with the TV still rumbling in the periphery of your attention. 

Only you and Serena remain in an otherwise funereal silence with a smog so thick it could choke you to death. She’s avoiding looking even in your general direction as you wait until she cracks. She’ll break first; she always has. Whether it’ll be her speaking to you finally, or leaving the room, you’re not sure.

The problem is that you have the terribly bad habit of forgetting exactly who Serena really is and what she does best. In the midst of living together, the escape from Gilead, and all the mixed up emotions that got confused in the aftermath, you tend to repress the natural fact that Serena Joy Waterford is a spiteful, nasty, stubborn bitch even on her very best days. 

You wait ten minutes, then twenty, until you realise with a flush of shame how you’ve once again underestimated how cold-blooded a creature you have in your midst. 

She’s not going to give you this, no matter how much you may deserve it. Because she’s selfish, she’s always been selfish, and she always will be. Because she’s such a small, merciless thing. Because you wanted to believe the lie, but she will never change. Not enough for it to really matter.

Still, the shifting blue light from the television screen falls across her face, drawing sharp shadows against her features, and all you can see is the smooth slope of her neck, and under it all the veins you’d once dreamt of plunging a knife into. Now, it’s the skin that you scrape your teeth across instead, nip and suck, inhale. How hatred easily becomes so wrapped up in passion is truly one of the cruellest jokes God ever devised for mankind. The blurred lines soften good judgment, as if the one thing God really craves is human failure.

As you regard Serena coolly from across the room, and she senses your gaze locked on her, she stiffens, clenches her teeth under those soft lips, and twitches, just a little. Flinching against the tickle of discomfort she gets from your ceaseless stare, yet she refuses to give in, not to you. Never to you. 

_Cunt_ , is the only word that forms in your mind, but you’re not sure if it’s an insult or a desire.

With a grimace, you rise from your seat as she pretends not to notice. There's only one way to find out. The TV drones on, a low groan against the impending pressure, and she valiantly sets her lips into a grim line, her eyes laser-locked on the screen. Of course she’s weak, and the moment you come close enough to change the temperature around her, her eyes flash quickly towards you and then away again. You watch with a sort of mild gratification as she swallows and her shoulders roll back a little. She’s incredibly uncomfortable with the situation. _Good_.

The moment you crawl onto the sofa beside her, she huffs through her nose and briefly glares at you, as if she has anything to be annoyed about. With a swift move, you swing your leg over her lap—and she immediately pushes you off with a strong arm. The thing is, you’re a stubborn bitch too. That’s the only way you’ve ever survived her for this long.

Again, you loop your thigh over her and climb onto her lap before she has a chance to shove you away this time, with your stomach pressing softly into the baby bump. All your weight is pushing her down into the sofa cushions, and you’d be lying if you claimed it didn’t feel nice. A slight shift of your hips and a spark of pleasure zips up your body.

Serena, on the other hand, is completely nonplussed, almost bored by your games. “You haven’t spoken two words to me all day,” she states, something venomous boiling under her words. “Get off me, June.” 

It makes you hate her even more, and the sneer in your smile spreads up your cheeks. It feels so familiar, so much like the time before, way back in Gilead that first time. Except here, you know she wants it—you— _something_ without a doubt, and you know with startling accuracy exactly where her invisible bruises are to press on. You don’t get off her at all; instead you grab her by the wrists this time, tightening your grip like a noose and she winces before gathering herself. 

“June.” It’s all she says and it crackles and growls from her throat. Again, an echo of a long ago time you’d pushed so deep into the past it had actually been forgotten. All you hear is “ _Offred”_. Bile rises at her tone, at yourself for being here. When you hate yourself, the only thing that feels better is making other people feel the same.

Especially Serena.

“Don’t you want to touch me?” Your own voice is barely recognisable to your own ears. With a sharp tug, she attempts to yank her wrists free. _Don’t you want my disease?_

“Not like this,” she snaps, weakly trying for the third, unsuccessful time to extricate herself. Maybe this should be familiar to her. You hope this feels a little bit like that time, like how you felt. Although, in this scenario, Fred isn’t here and nobody is actually going to go through with the act. You’re not as despicable as they were.

You rise a little and pull her hands to your ass, allowing her what she wants, because it’s only okay if you say so, if you make every move first. “What about like this?” There’s a coarseness in your voice that is unexpected as you feel her fingers flex a little against you. She doesn’t move away when you bring your hands to her shoulders, and her breath hitches in tandem with yours. When you meet her eyes, the blue of her irises is almost non-existent already. Why does it always turn out this way? It’s not supposed to feel good. It’s meant to be a punishment.

Drawing in a stuttering breath, her fingers spread wider, holding you in place. For some reason, you don’t expect it when she leans forward, awkwardly with the impediment between your bodies, immediately finding your peaked nipple through the cotton of your t-shirt like some sort of homing pigeon. Her teeth graze and then nip. Too hard. It hurts a little, but it coils something between your legs, something wet and demanding. With an angry hiss and an arch of your back, you grip onto her hair, too tightly, yanking it in your fists and she loosens her bite, sweeping the tip of her tongue over your t-shirt instead. You loathe the way goosebumps pepper every inch of skin at the feel of her lips, and the way your breath gets caught tightly in your throat until it hurts to inhale. You’re drowning already.

 _Cunt_ , you curse angrily inside, still unsure of what it means to you.

Are you really going to let her fuck you on the living room sofa, with anybody likely to wander down at any time? Is that what your life has been reduced to? Resentful hate sex on a family sofa just to feel something at all, where you’re both just one touch away from causing actual pain. This isn’t what marriage should be.

You sink down onto her lap again, grinding down against her thigh, using the mild twinges of satisfaction as a distraction from the red slices of dread and bitterness lingering in your gut and try to ignore her pregnant belly getting the way of what you really want. Her large hands anchor you down, prompting yet another shudder of pleasure, a filthy indulgence you also resent. Her mouth is hot, slick and demanding against your neck and you’re fucking helpless under her assault as your head lolls back of its own accord. Such a betrayal, but then your body has always let you down when you needed it most.

“Upstairs,” she mutters, as if it’s not a question, but a demand.

As if you’re going to give her anything she wants and you twist your fist in her hair, right against her scalp for good measure, to remind her who’s in charge of this. The wince is unmistakable. Hopefully she hates you as much as you hate yourself right now. To test her, you pull away and tug your t-shirt above your head and toss it aside. This is tempting fate; she’ll be humiliated if someone comes into the room even if it’s only you who’s topless. Her discomfort is palpable and her cheeks flush with rage at your flagrant display of sexuality. Half-livid, half-aroused.

“ _June_ ,” she warns sharply, practically gnashing her teeth in your direction. 

Your eyes narrow at her in triumph as despite her protests, she can’t help her freely hands from sliding up your hips, over your waist, growing more demanding with the more bare skin she feels. She’s disgusting. She’s an addict. You knew it the first time you ever let her touch you.

After a pause, you wriggle around, snatching her hand and putting it on the elastic waistband of your pyjama bottoms.

“Help me.” It is meant to come out cocky and self-assured; instead your voice emerges as a strangled appeal. Maybe you meant it more than one way and it’s yet another betrayal from your own body. A flash akin to concern passes over her and you’re terrified she’s seen through this charade and that any minute she’s going to use her dominant strength and aplomb to wrench you back into sanity, out of whatever black Hell you’ve been sprawled out underneath for weeks now.

But of course Serena is a human invertebrate and so she glances away, ignoring what she’s seen in you. “Not here.”

She’s trying the very last of your patience and whatever cracks of arousal had sprung open in the past few minutes are quickly closing again with her reticence. Twisting her hand, you shove it inside your pants and between your legs, using her fingers against yourself until they’re slippery. Her breathing is fast and her eyes wide, panicked, her body stiff. But she’s freely touching you all the same, purposefully and carefully, like she’s physically incapable of stopping herself. She still wants you. 

Sick cunt.

This time you’re not sure if you’re talking about her, or yourself for enjoying it.

Canting your hips, it’s like she can read your mind and two fingers slide into you with a gasp as you fall down on her hand again, riding her fingers as her lips latch into your breasts, this time without the impediment of your t-shirt. There’s no withholding the groan that explodes out of you at the sensations, especially as she adds a third finger. Your hips rock harder and faster, grinding down onto her, recklessly ignoring how much it may hurt her wrist. This is for you and you alone. Sometimes, just the thought of her fingers is enough to bring you to the precipice of coming. The way she’s panting and whimpering is of no consequence to you anymore. All you do for her is squeeze your fingertips into her soft shoulder, and others rip at her scalp, anything to anchor yourself to her. But you don’t touch her intimately, not in any way she’d like, and you’ll kill yourself before kissing her back.

This is bad sex.

You’ve never had this with her before. It’s not bad in the unsatisfactory way; it’s bad in the way it hurts somewhere deep inside you, like in your chest, in your heart. Her fingers feel amazing inside you, her mouth is heavenly on your nipples, the way you can create a glowing friction between your clit and her hand is exactly what you want. You’ve never fucked anywhere downstairs before. This is raw and new, and in all ways, it should feel wonderful. But something thick and dark ropes through your blood, your heart cramps like it’s breaking in half. It feels awful, too vicious and hateful. You’re ripping off a scab that hasn’t healed yet. 

It’s very bad sex.

Static exists between you two, a disconnect. It’s as if you’re talking over a bad phone line, where you’re trying to be heard but the other side is breaking up, stuttering, dropping out at the worst moments. It’s shouting _Hello?_ into the void, and never hearing anything back, but waiting, hoping to hear all the same. Once upon a time, there was an echo and it felt a lot like Serena Joy. You can’t really feel much now.

You crush her hand between your bodies as you ride her and ignore the tiny yelp of pain from her even if her other hand, the one holding you delicately in place as if you’re the one about to break, stays steady and strong. Nothing matters other than your orgasm, but even so, a stinging ache billows up behind your eyes. 

When you finally come, bucking against her and shuddering with the muffled moans you can’t let free, you realise your cheeks are wet and your eyes sting a little. Before she has a chance to look up at you, you angrily wipe an arm over your face, holding her head against your chest as it heaves. She’s completely still, frozen maybe, with her fingers still deep inside you. Every muscle there is still undulating and clenching, unable to let her go yet. She’s breathing hard against the bare skin of your chest and heat is coming off her in waves.

As you loosen your grip on her hair, she pulls away, sliding her hands away from you and rolling her wrist as if you’ve actually injured her. Her wrist has always bothered her since that evil night in Gilead. Maybe you should care, but you don’t. You also don’t seem to be able to care about the fact her eyes are watery and rimmed red, as if she’s been crying too.

Still, she knows, and she fails to apologise, fails to recognise why this has happened in the first place. With no lingering tenderness, she shoves you off her and lets out a shiver. As usual, she doesn’t say anything, and can’t quite bring herself to look at you now as you glare at her, as if it’s all her fault, challenging her to do something. Anything. _Please, Serena. Do something—anything to make this better_. You beg a god that no longer exists for a miracle that you don't even believe in.

Of course it goes unheard and unanswered as she just sits there, silent and lifeless.

Silly you, for expecting any different. You jerk your t-shirt back over your head and adjust the now-overstretched waistband of your pyjamas. There is no pleasant afterglow here, only the dry sting between your legs. Everything just feels even more empty than before.

* * *

In the following week, you don’t let her touch you at all. Not at night, not during the day. Not at all. Every time she tries, you squirm out of reach. Your skin now crawls constantly when she’s near and you take to sneaking down to the sofa late at night and sleeping there until there’s movement upstairs the next day. There is a particular shame you feel in this behaviour, as if you can’t give into Moira’s smarmy “Told you so” that would surely ring in your ears. For the children, you insist, when you creep upstairs and into the bed you’re supposed to be sharing with her before Nicole notices. 

She doesn’t even attempt to talk to you about it and the whole thing looms over the both of you, oppressive and dark. You can’t even imagine what the words could be to fix this, and she’s apparently in no hurry to try. What hurts the most is, other than the occasional pang of surprise that you flinch away, she barely seems to even care about the distance. As if this is just a normal marriage to her. Maybe it is.

She drives herself to the clinic, sometimes multiple times a week, keeping all her pregnancy complaints to herself, but clearly suffering in silence. And really, you can’t find it in yourself to even care any longer. A nasty little part of you catches your thoughts wishing for the worst and seeing her lose the thing she wants the most.

Maybe all is not lost, because after you entertain that heinous thought, you promptly vomit in the downstairs toilet. It stinks like pure shame. The innocent baby doesn’t deserve that; it didn’t choose Serena as its mother. You’re the only one to blame for bad choices at this point.

Even so, that night, out of overwhelming guilt for your previous thoughts perhaps, you silently crawl into bed next to her and don’t leave until morning, even when she rolls away from your hand on her belly and pretends you aren’t there. You can’t help yourself.

* * *

The night before her final manuscript is due to be sent to her publisher, you see the draft she’d shown you, with all its ugly red marks and scribbles from your pen, in the garbage can. The entire thing. You realise she’s listened to you about what a terrible idea that draft was, but has clearly written something else. Something she has refused to share with you now. You have no idea what it could be, and the fact she no longer trusts you to edit her work, to give feedback, to share herself with you, makes you livid. It also makes you incredibly sad, to the point where it’s not unlike that first confusing breakup you experienced with Kevin, back at the end of high school. That’s exactly what seeing that paper in the bin and knowing she’s written something entirely different without telling you feels like: a breakup.

* * *

You’re split in two, every single second around her. Life is easy—simple even—when she’s not near. But when she is, and especially when you’re pissed off as fuck with her, there’s part of you that just wants to tear at your own skin until it shreds into ribbons of blood and raw flesh. Maybe then, she’d finally understand what she does to you. Maybe then she’d finally leave, because you can’t. You’ve tried to leave, many times and in many ways and every single time you end up back in the same place, in the same bed. So, it’s got to be her that makes the final move.

What you know you can do is shove her back so hard she’ll get angry and retaliate. There are certain buttons in secret places that you know how to push; you’ve got the nuclear codes all tucked away neatly on a folded napkin in the back of your mind. Maybe if her life is truly unbearable, she’ll finally fuck off. Then again, she stubbornly persevered through Gilead and surely that is worse than anything you could do. 

She’ll dig in, of course she will, and never, _ever_ leave.

 _Not as long as Nicole is around_ , another part of you chimes in. That’s your fault for playing along the way you have. Of course, the adoption papers and the wedding band on her finger are pretty secure locks too.

Now, she putters around the kitchen, doing God knows what but keeping her huge pregnant self busy with meaningless distraction. A bubble, a pop, a rumbling heat ripples through your blood at the whole situation. Boiling. It’s somewhere between wrath and passion, if the two are even distinguishable anymore. Because when you watch her, your mind reels with conflicting desires. 

On the one hand, you’re hurting and nothing would soothe you like reaching out and touching her, grounding yourself into her reality again. And she’d let you, no matter how angry she is, she always lets you touch her, no matter what. Something even as basic as running your palm across the small of her back, it calms you down and allows every breath you hold to escape. 

Just this morning, you’d wandered up behind her, not seeking anything in particular but finding yourself close enough to touch her waist, to press your lips against the dip between her bare shoulders, right along her spine. It’s only okay to be this close now if you’re doing the touching first, if you’re in control of every movement. The tiny hairs on your neck stand on end when you draw into her orbit, not altogether pleasantly, but the light smell of her skin, that little bit of sweat, it dives straight through you. Engulfed, a repulsive warmth begins to build completely out of your control, so out of desperation, you press your body against hers, trying to ease the urgency building between your legs. Arousal spiders around your ears, trickles down your neck and over your arms. Why is it that a mere scent on her causes such violent, unwanted reaction within you? 

You hate it: the idea of her touching you back, being above you, of her taking control of your pleasure and your release. Just the thought of it causes an acrid burn to sneak up your throat, but the burgeoning weight farther below demands attention that you will not give it. She’s not going to own that vulnerability in you anymore, and you’re no longer trusting her with it. She held your wrists too many times against that horrible blue-draped mattress for you to forget how easily she stole that from you. You’d given her trust that time too, you’d sat on her bed right before she’d snapped her hands around yours and wrestled you onto your back, for revenge.

That isn’t going to ever leave you. She can accumulate hundreds of scars across her skin, but none of them will be as permanent as your memories of her grip on your wrists as her husband raped you, and she helped him. It was her idea, he had said. Her “mess”. The chill up your spine doesn’t cease when you recall how she didn’t hesitate even as you screamed her name.

That was her. This same woman who you’ve given your body, your touch, your affection, your weakness, your bed, your house, your compassion, your children, your fucking name to. You’ve given that woman who did that horrible thing your entire being. The air everywhere is thick and syrupy, gluing itself to your skin and clogging your throat like a dirty drain. Still, it seeps into your pores, that dreadful and chilling feeling of something you can’t even name. You’re afraid to give it one. Nightmares are only tolerable in the shadows, when you’re certain you can wake up and escape them. Somehow, the monster is scarier when it takes a recognizable form.

Equally strong is the desire to smack her. Just wallop her like she’s done to you, out of nowhere and for no reason. Cold cock her against a doorframe, maybe. Throw her against a wall. Bruise her. Crush her wrists between the vice of your vengeful hands. Your wounds have healed on the surface, sure. But you’ve never forgotten.

It’s ridiculous but you want to hurt her the way you are, constantly. The mere idea of seeking comfort from her causes a wave of revulsion to ebb through your body. You hate her even more, and you want to lash out at the same time as you want to curl into her chest and hang on for dear life.

These two things coexist at exactly the same time, in the exact same intensity, for exactly the same reasons. She’s tearing you down the centre of your being, and it’s killing you. 

And of course, you don’t do either. You don’t run your fingers along her arm, and you don’t raise a fist. You sit, and you stew, and you ache with resentment, longing, and grief. You swallow, feeling the clench of your throat as it rips on shrapnel. Every step nearer or around her is a potential landmine, but with nails sticking up instead of grass under your toes. Fuck, it _aches_. The air is suffocating, with tiny and invisible shards of glass whipping across your skin. It may all be in your head but you truly believe you’re being flayed alive.

It was never this way with Luke, or anybody else. This is something uniquely Serena in its origin and it’s something you can blame on her entirely.

So, you don’t touch her. That’s the first step to regaining yourself. You’re making a choice just for you and about you, without any input from her at all. Sure, part of it is because the idea of her touching you makes something in your body recoil. It takes conscious effort not to physically flinch in disgust if she draws too near. But the problem is, you had no idea how much you did rely on touch until you denied it to yourself.

Almost every minute, you recognise that tug of desire to reach out. And it's never a dramatic sort of gesture, just merely the brush of your hand across her arm, or casually leaning into her body, or even the way that you could just place yourself in her range, and grab her clothes, pull her against you for your own sense of comfort. It actually feels like drug withdrawal to deny yourself touch now. At first, in Gilead, you hadn’t even noticed it was missing because so many other things were going on instead. Much more painful things, to your body and to your mind. It only began to mean more much later. But here, maybe you’d taken it for granted when Toronto took you in. Maybe you were just starving, and will always be starving, and Serena was like a feast for your senses.

People always talk about babies, and how cuddling, kissing, stroking, calming them makes healthier children. How a baby can die without touch. Often you think about Baby Angela—Charlotte and Janine. But more often, you realise you’re all just grown babies. Of course nobody has died from lack of sex; you’re not certain a human adult has ever died from lack of physical touch either. But, all that oxytocin has to be made somehow or else misery sets in. You’re fucking addicted to it; and different people give you different doses of the stuff.

Hannah and Nicole, they’re your children and they require it, and you take it too. It’s bonding. It’s safe. It’s a mothering, nurturing instinct. Moira, there’s a comfort there too. Luke, as well. But you’re not a junkie for them like you are for her. There’s only one person you snarl and claw at for your fix, and you’re trying to go cold turkey.

Right now, you can swear you’re sweating on a mattress with a demonic baby crawling across the ceiling above you. Jonesing is a nice way to put it, but you also feel such disgust at the concept that it allows you to stay away from her.

Of course she’s noticed how cold you are, and how the occasional times you allow her to touch you, that your hold is weak and noncommittal, like you’re keeping your distance in other ways. You don’t return anything the way you used to, and for you, it’s what you need while the coward she is, she doesn’t say much. 

Once, about a week ago, she’d asked if something was wrong.

 _Everything is fucking wrong, Serena._ You wanted to just screech at her, just wail and cry. Instead, you said no, nothing’s wrong. Why would anything be wrong? Psychologists have a word for that too: gaslighting, and you suppose it’s sort of accurate. You want her to question her reality, to be confused and put out. You want her to lose track of what is truth and what isn’t. It’s only fair this time that she experiences some of that too.

You’d shaken your head instead and moved away, putting the required distance between you. She hadn’t asked again.


	6. like a hook in an eye

They make her publish the book under her old name; it’s got more credibility, more notoriety. You recall the hours she’d spent arguing on the phone with her agent about that. Raised voices, anger, frustration, slammed doors. _That’s not my name anymore_ , you recall hearing her shout, her tense voice cracking in frustration and flat out anguish. The desperation to erase that part of her past—to erase history like all proper fascists do—still is a smog over the whole house, and it permeates everything surrounding Serena at all times. Revisionist history is the heaviest kind.

As you hold the advance review copy in your hands, the world beyond the front cover swirls, a surreal vortex of impossibility and fantasy. You already know what’s inside, as you’d done a lot of the editing, but still, it’s real now, this tome. A testament to Gilead’s horrors, from the women that lived through them. The jacket is blood red, with a sharp, unwavering font and her old name seared into it.

You know what’s written in the acknowledgements, in the foreword, in many of the various chapters, the author’s biography. You know how it ends. You don’t know what her chapter says though. You’d never bothered to ask.

But when you slowly flip that hardcover open, hearing the creak as the spine breaks and smell the fresh ink from the press, you’re not prepared for the way your breath leaves your body and fails to return.

The dedication page is eerily empty when you had expected a deluge of names. Instead, planted squarely in the middle of a blank white page, a mere handful of words screams out at you.

“For my wife, June.  
 _I thank my God every time I think of you._ ”

A choking sound echoes hollowly in the quiet room, and it’s you. Something bubbles up alongside the bliss that’s akin to anger in its passion, but not as harsh, nor like frustration. Something that makes you feel ashamed at how easily she can bring tears to the corner of your eyes even now. Standing alone in this room, staring at a page with the simplest of dedications on it has turned you into a pathetic blubbering mess and you loathe it. To the outside world, she makes it look so goddamn easy to love, and after everything she’s done, it’s not supposed to be like that, not for her. She’s the empty, soulless succubus, leaching sympathy and love from anybody she can, not you. She’s the parasite, lapping around the festering wounds of other animals, nipping, sucking, in some sort of sycophantic frenzy to be filled once and for all. How does she suddenly know how to make such a convincing mockery of commitment and intimacy when before she could barely meet your eyes and speak anything resembling the truth?

There’s another sort of shame, a darker shade of dismay that slinks over your chest, whispering doubts in your ear. A predator in the shadows. It reminds you that there’s something missing in you this time; that if this had been your book, she would not be its sole dedicant. She may be somewhere on the list, perhaps. But nothing like _this_. You’re ashamed that once again you're the bad wife, the one that hasn't tried hard enough. Like with Luke. That dedication only exists because you didn’t try hard enough with him, for him.

 _For my wife, June_.

Four simple, everyday words, strung together as if it hasn’t taken a war to make it so. As if she hasn’t lost two fingers in order to be able to even put those words onto paper. Part of you is so angry at the flagrant display, and embarrassed seeing your name there, in a book with her name on the cover. It’s like spitting in the face of it all.

The half of you that’s overwhelmed with warmth and a little sprinkling of euphoria at seeing those words is doing battle with the other, more cynical half of you. Frustrated tears are the only result, and you squeeze your eyes shut to block their flow, shaking your head to clear them.

As you breathe more steadily again, you pass over the pages, flying through them until you hit the back and see the dust jacket. They really did use it. You expected the final choice of photo to be one of those dignified black and white portraits, all serious with a determined glint in the author’s eye. Instead, it’s an outtake of all things, from the promotional photoshoot the publisher insisted upon.

When you look at the photograph, you're peering into someone else’s life like a peeping Tom. You barely recognise the bright smiles, as if your life only exists in some old Sears catalogue your mother used to get at Christmas time. It’s your family grinning back at you, unfamiliar and disquieting. The new one: Serena with her pregnant belly, you, Hannah, and Nicole. Smiling. Each one of the faces that reflects out is happy, genuinely so in that moment. All sitting—no, sprawled out together on a bed, a prop in a photo studio of course, with bright white sheets and sunlight, loose hair, casual clothes. Straight out of Refugee Fairytale magazine. 

An incredulous snort escapes as you glare at it. This book wouldn't even need to exist if it hadn't been for her previous one.

Is this really how they wanted to rub it in? A book full of first-hand accounts of torture, rape, oppression, and fear… and that’s the photo they chose? It seems like salt in a wound, albeit an infected one. If this is how _you_ feel, you can only imagine Moira, Emily, or any ex-Handmaid would react after reading this book and seeing that picturesque portrait of Serena Joy and her perfect, happy family. Then the ex-Handmaid, just like them, but somehow worse, _complicit_ alongside her. 

But, it’ll sure piss off Gilead, and that’s really the whole point anyway. Literary trolling.

(Years later and you’re both still merely some man’s pawns.)

Maybe she didn’t even write the dedication herself, if that’s the goal. Finally your discomfort begins to make sense. Slamming the book closed, no curiosity about her contribution remaining, even the smell of fresh ink doesn’t make you feel good anymore. The light catches the ring on your finger, and all you can picture is Tuello and her book agent at your tiny wedding ceremony, and how Serena always promised she’d “do anything” to fix the mess she’s made. _Anything_ means no ceiling, no maximum, the works.

Not even God’s vows are off-limits.

Perhaps if you had any adult in your life that didn’t hate Serena, they could reassure you about this, tell you you’re being paranoid about her motivations, but you're the only one who truly knows the woman whose name graces the cover. You also know Moira and Luke would easily agree with your conspiracy theories. Even more, they’d likely salivate at the prospect that finally you’re seeing her for who she’s always has been.

A shudder passes down your spine as you stare at the scarlet book on the desk, emblazoned with Mrs. Waterford’s name, the woman who built that world and is thus an accomplice in the one you are stuck in now. It’s the exact same shade as your Handmaid dress and your life is bound between its pages.

* * *

  
  


That night, she doesn't mention the book. Neither of you brings up the advance copy sitting on the desk in the bedroom, only a few feet from where you lie beside her in your nightly ritual of attempting to fool Nicole into thinking nothing is wrong until she falls asleep. A nervous energy radiates from Serena all evening, as if she's dying to talk about it, but still can’t find that little bit of courage. After everything you've been through together, she still can't come to you? Maybe that's her guilt seeping out, maybe it's her shame for this charade. She knows you've seen through it all.

It could also be hormones, but you're a little sick of blaming random biological processes for human failings when the reason is so much simpler. At this point, _man up, Serena_. It’s been years of the same old shit with her.

You turn the lights out, and she flops around, trying to find a comfortable position before sighing loudly in the dark. Instead of taking the bait this time, you roll away, putting your back to her and mumble a halfhearted goodnight. 

For only a second, there is no sound. Not a breath, not a dreamy murmur from Nicole, not a rustle of cotton sheets, not a creak of floorboards outside. Nothing. It's as if the world dies, just momentarily. A small death, like those few seconds that you hold down the reset button and wait for the power to come back. God lifts his finger off the reset, and the world whirls back to life. Taking your presence in the bed as a sign of something, the mattress groans, muffled and low, as she maneuvers closer. The swell of her stomach is large, but not so much that it interferes with her attempts to curl up behind you, slipping a knee between your legs. 

_Pushy bitch_ , is your first thought.

As her hands slither under the sheets, under the hem of your shirt, and her fingers splay out across the soft skin of your abdomen, she sighs again. It's so loud in the bedroom. Her lips always know how to seek out your skin, no matter how much unruly blonde hair is in the way. Goosebumps pucker along your arms as the heat of her mouth comes down behind your ear, slowly, hesitantly. 

"June," she breathes, haunting and light. The distant wail of an ensnared ghost. She knows something is wrong and this is her way—her only way it seems—to seek solace and answers. 

An ugly grumble works its way through your chest at her everlasting incompetence. Your hand grabs her roving one, and squeezes, probably too tightly because she flinches back initially, pulling at it until you release her. 

There's silence, angry, petulant even, and certainly more tense than you intended. 

"Fine," she says crisply, the single syllable snapping hard. Irritation screams out from her tone, but it's the cold air left along your neck that prickles the most, like ice forming a hard crust over the lake. You’re exhausted by this constant dance, the way you have to fight her and beg her to talk to you all the time, and the goddamn yearning for her despite all that. A ceaseless cycle of trapping and being trapped. Luring and being lured. You hate the only way she’ll release any of her feelings is through tantrums or sex or tears, and how sometimes, especially now as the stress builds once more, the three of those things are inseparable. How base, how animalistic, and yet how apt. How very Serena.

Resentment. That's what it is. A biting, sharp little prick, digging its tiny teeth into your skin when she's near. The worst part is that you can't pinpoint when or where it started, or if it's always been there, lurking in the shadows and lying in wait. Surely, you would have felt it before you shouted out a marriage proposal in a supermarket parking lot, and definitely before you kissed her in front of friends and family, sealing your fates together. 

You can hear your mother's voice, loudly: _You should have thought it through better_. You shown have known better than to believe people change that much. You should have known yourself better. 

She'd hate you for doing this, for falling for it all. Again. 

_What a goddamn disappointment you are, Junie._

Okay, she never said that, out loud. But it was written across her face every time you turned down one of her feminist coven meetings and Moira didn’t, when you got a promotion at your job, when you married Luke, when you baptized Hannah, and when you rolled over like a lazy cat in the sun as the Sons of Jacob slowly slipped their poisonous claws into the government instead of fighting alongside her from the beginning. 

Now you've married into Gilead 2.0, to be used and have your innocent children be used by all sorts of strangers as a propagandist tool is not unlike how Serena herself was trotted out at rallies once upon a time. What was it called? A dog and pony show? Fucking _woof_.

 _For my wife, June.  
_ _I thank my God every time I think of you._

The worst part is how after a few minutes, you take a long breath, and roll your eyes. It's as if you've got a stupid motor pushing and driving you back into the waiting jaws of a shark. You don't even want her; you can't stand her. Serena shifts in the darkness, a little further away but it doesn't stop you from turning over, reaching out, grabbing hold of her ugly t-shirt, and crawling up next to her. Her body, though tense, is reluctantly waiting for you. It always is.

If there is nothing else, you fit into her like a puzzle piece. That’s something. Maybe. 

* * *

Daylight brings clarity so by the morning, you’re back on the sofa again, vowing to not let her pretty little words manipulate you again. Her selfish touch is intolerable, her presence only slightly less so. The new book still sits untouched on the desk, and you refuse to fall prey to her again, whatever fantasies and half-truths she’s spewed out over it’s crisp white pages. There is nothing she says that isn’t at least partly a lie.

* * *

Devouring her god, that’s what you had once thought you were doing, way back when it was only about sex and power. Careful bites, slowly moving towards the core. Your teeth slicing through soft, brown bruises and delighting in the snap and crunch of crisp flesh under your lips, always careful to avoid the pit. That was back when you had deluded yourself into believing whatever sick bonds you’d formed were trivial and weak, and you more than her was the master manipulator. Every way you calculated it, the equation came out to the same answer: you own her. And now, you literally do, in a way. She’s Serena Osborne. It wouldn’t shock you anymore to see her write her name tag as Ofjune. She’s exactly that kind of fucked up.

She’s taken your name when she could have easily kept her own, from the time before Fred. Anything but Waterford, essentially. 

Then again, it sounds like theft when you think of it like that. _Taking your name_. She’s the one owning a piece of your identity and claiming it as her own. It’s an act of appropriation and of war, which is utterly predictable for someone like her. But, really, you’re the one who suggested it, who screamed to life the possibility in a supermarket parking lot. Before that, you can assume she hadn’t even considered the thought.

You gave birth to it. You stole her identity, and reclaimed her as if she was a parcel of disused swamp land and you’re the pioneer. It’s yours. You own her. You've got the deed and have already started to build the house. It’s foolish to believe that and not recognise the opposite truths. The most obvious being that she, well, has just as much claim to you as you do to her, names aside. You’re her wife too. There’s a ring on your finger. You still don’t sleep well unless she’s beside you, despite all your bravado and best efforts to deny it. Those long fingers have dug into your skin, pushed through your sinews and tendons until she’s so deep inside you that you’re no longer certain that there is _a you and a her_ , only a we. She controls the story simply by saying her own name, because the story then isn’t solely about her. It necessitates a mention of you.

There must be an explanation for her new surname, of course. The words “my wife” alone are enough to drag you into it, regardless of whether you wish to be or not. Mrs. Serena Osborne means there must be another Osborne now, one whom she is bound tightly enough to to share a marker to the rest of the world. You’re pulled along in her narrative, regardless of whether you want to be just by that simple name alone. It’s not much different than being Offred, when it really comes down to it.

* * *

The thing is, there’s something you don’t like about the new Serena, this Serena Osborne. (Well, there are many things you've never liked about her.) 

Something is missing. She was _right_ for you, a well-suited sparring partner because she could take it and throw it back. Never too kind, nor too soft, or too good. You could hurt her, use her, even own her and feel no remorse. There were no conflicted ethics or morals. She deserved you, in whatever way people deserve that sort of thing. Her petulance is too simple, her softness too visible. Now, anything that comes at her pummels her into submission in a way that makes you uneasy and knocks you off-balance.

You hate her weakness and vulnerability because suddenly you're just the bully, throwing your weight around and seeing what can bruise. Maybe it's only fair because there was a time she had done the very same, but it was supposed to be you and her, head to head, toe to toe, fist to fist, eye to eye. She was your match.

A worthy opponent. _Sharpen your fangs, it's not the end!_ It's like that voice from a long forgotten console game in your dad's basement. You had always smashed all the keys on the controller until you either won or lost, and everything that appeared planned was actually random chance. Your friends always hated playing that game with you for that reason, and that's exactly what the back and forth with Serena feels like. Barely contained chaos. _Ultra combo finish_.

There are no rules to bedlam, and fury, and the fate of circumstance. It's chance, and even more pure dumb, blind luck to meet your perfect shadow.

Once, you'd defiantly meet her sinister glare from across the room in Gilead, and toss it right back with the type of reckless impunity reserved only for lovers and similarly insane people. And that was back when you were neither. She’d cock her head and you’d arch an eyebrow, mirroring her challenge. Gentle retaliations. She’d lock you in your room and you’d seduce her husband. She’d invade your privacy and you’d vomit all over her table. She’d choke you with her hands and you’d suffocate her with your words. She’d threaten your baby and you’d threaten hers right back, ping pong. Tit for tat. She’d vacuum your breath out as you came, and you’d fuck her until you could rip her precious God out of her clenched fists. All these little things: killing, dying, gasping for something that made life out of nothing at all.

You were trying to hurt each other just for you both to feel alive in that place.

Everything was a delicate balance, but she was—all things considered—your perfect match. And you were hers. Any lesser person would have likely killed themselves with Serena as a companion, but you’d kept each other distracted, occupied, challenged, and alive in the most fucked up way imaginable.

No one else can stand her, and by now perhaps, nobody else can stand you either. Not like she can. (Not like she _could_.) That's the whole fucking problem in the first place: how goddamn complementary you are.

_You fit into me._

_Like a hook in an eye_ ; that was the poem you read once. _A fish hook, an open eye_.

Who is the hook and who is the eye now?

This Serena balks at your pointed stares, she recoils at your sharp tone, and she slithers away into any crevice she finds when your poison-tipped barbs come too close to landing along her skin. She was so impervious once. You don't like her this soft, the way her underbelly is the only thing exposed to you now, like a kicked dog rolling over in submission. It doesn’t suit her.

That's sick, you remind yourself. People shouldn't desire crisp shells and impermeable armour on their lovers; they shouldn't get off on the ability to throw pain around and have it bounce back.

It is sick though. Everything about you and her has always been a symptom of an illness of some sort. Maybe she’s right, in that stupid chapter she wrote. You and her are diseased, but not for the reasons she writes about.

* * *

Of course, eventually things would have to either fizzle out or explode. Considering the past you share with Serena, there was very little chance of the former because eventually Mrs. Waterford was bound to emerge once again. Silly you for even considering that love could overpower everything venomous inside her that had been nurtured with care since she learnt to talk. Just because someone can live with a pet tarantula and not have it bite for years on end doesn’t mean it’s not still a tarantula.

You’d like to believe that she is the queen of simmering, stubborn resentment but occasionally when you glance in the mirror you’re forced to face the unfortunate traits you have in common. This time however, you feel entirely justified in your slowly billowing enmity.

You’ve been slashing at each other’s throats for two days straight now. Gone are the long silences, the hanging bitterness in the air. There were times back in Gilead that the stink in the house was exactly like this, the same rancid cloak of hatred burnished onto the very woodgrain of the floors and ceilings. They were the worst days, weeks, months in that house. Maybe they hadn’t been the worst days of your life—that is reserved for the day you were torn from Hannah, and the weeks of torture that followed. But they had been close. Except now, these exchanges no longer have the vigour of novelty or attacking each other for sport and excitement. They wound differently. They cut that little bit deeper.

Back then, in the very smallest recesses of your mind there had been hope because there had been a fantasy of escape. You could face off against the monstrous blue beast, over and over, for entertainment, for something to do, to provoke even the ghost of touch, for any reason and always lingering around was the idea that maybe one day, _this will be over_. One way or another, it could end. In Canada, now there is no escape, not really. This is the endpoint. There is nowhere left to escape to. All that remains is death, and that is simply not an option anymore, not like it was in Gilead. So, the fights stretch out and onwards, into perpetuity.

Once upon a time, here, you would have kept your arguments behind closed doors in hushed but vicious tones. Her shame and docility appears to have evaporated around the same time as your patience. In front of the kids, in front of Moira, it doesn’t matter. Most of the time when you’re not sniping and barking at each other, she’s with Nicole, alone. They spend even more time together than ever before, as if she’s bombing her with love just in case there’s a shortage of time left, regardless of the fact that by law (another grievously shortsighted mistake of yours) Serena is Nicole’s mother on paper. A custody suit at this point would be a fucking nightmare. Even so, Serena knows there’s a hurricane drawing nearer by the minute and any second Nicole can be swept away.

It’s so toxic for the kids. You don’t really give a shit about yourself or any other adult in the house, but your children should not be subjected to such constant hostility, and it _is_ constant because you will fight about anything— _literally_ anything. It used to be about things of consequence, like Nicole, Hannah, Luke, Moira, Nick and your relationships to those people, and her lack of such with the exception of Nicole. Sometimes, it would be about something she’d said in yet another self-aggrandizing, guilt-appeasing vanity project article or public appearance, or some slight she made, or her generally intolerable attitude towards anything not of her own personal tastes. Now, her shitty writing has never been off limits to your criticism, nor are her terrible books, the newest and the old one that started it all. Only occasionally does the issue of Gilead arise, and even then, you both find it beneficial to skip over that particular black spot—as if it can physically drag you into the depths of Hell by the mere mention alone. Then, there are her so-called jobs, your part-time work as an editor, who should be doing the school runs, why Luke shouldn’t have the car so often, the cost of the groceries or Nicole’s preschool. Mostly however, it degrades into inane bickering about any manner of absolutely trivial and idiotic things because it seems that the mere act of being alive in each other’s presence is justification enough for extreme irritation. Gone is any hint of affection as you find yourself fully repelled by the sight of her, let alone her touch.

Maybe that’s really how it’s always been. You chew too loudly. She leaves her towels on the floor. You don’t make the bed specifically to her standards. She bought the 1% instead of 2% milk at the market. You sing to yourself in public. She cracks her knuckles too often and it makes your skin crawl. You frown too much in the morning. She blows through too many yellow lights. You leave a fork on the countertop. She just won't fucking shut up. Regardless of how insignificant the original complaint, it inevitably escalates at an exponential rate into screaming matches. Neither of you has learnt to back down, nor can you imagine giving into her bullshit any longer.

You don’t blame hormones this time. This is all Serena Joy Waterford.

You two are like those awful fish that cheap, irresponsible pet stores would sell to teenagers who would then turn around and have the fish kill each other. Slowly. Viciously, but slowly. Every single time you and Serena end up in the same room, it begins with snide commentary or a less-than-clever insult and barrels full steam ahead into an all out argument. Honestly, you have no idea what you even fight about anymore. The words themselves seem meaningless, but the acidity dissolves everything in sight.

This is around the time most people would be considering divorce, and Nicole is around the age you were when your own parents made that decision. You sleep in separate rooms, can’t stand the mere presence of each other, have nothing kind left to say, and are polluting the house with a dirty smog of anger that is affecting everyone else too. You want to blame it all on those stupid seconds where she grabbed your wrists in bed, but even you know it’s deeper than that and always had been. That was merely a catalyst for something much larger that you cannot even comprehend the full scope of yet. Straws and camels, a domino run collapsing, a house falling down, brick-by-brick.

So far, neither of you has even whispered the big d-word.

Instead you yell, you criticise, you bitch and argue and sulk. Both of you. Back and forth. Continuing to play this little tug of war is easier than mustering the courage to finally cut the cord.

At first Moira tries her best to calm the waters, but talking to you does about as much good as a fart in a windstorm, and there is no way in _Hell_ Moira would even consider approaching Serena without a baseball bat in hand. It evolves into a sort of grudge match where your best friend is forced into the role of referee, at least when kids are present.

But eventually she snaps too one evening as you and Serena are rehashing some irritating bullshit from earlier in that day that still hadn’t been settled to either of your satisfaction. 

Something about Moira raising her voice here is shocking, not that you haven’t heard it many times before—before Gilead, during protests and speeches and poetry readings. Just not here, not since her work with other refugees began. She was always very incensed about the issues, but she doesn’t raise her voice anymore, except in crowds. Home is safe, or at least it’s meant to be. And Moira never lived with you and Serena in that hideous excuse for a home in Gilead. She doesn’t understand that half your lives together centered on these spiteful exercises.

“There are children upstairs!” Her voice bounces heavily off the kitchen cupboards and smacks against your ears, so loudly that even Serena appears to flinch. With a stern glare at both of you, she sighs. “Just fucking shut up. Deal with your shit once and for all, or one of you needs to get the fuck out of this house. At this point, I don’t even care who.”

Now, that stings far more than you expect because Moira is yours, and she’s meant to be on your side, always. There’s a part of you that suddenly hates her too for taking Serena’s side when she knows fuckall about the details here. Always, she’s always supposed to be in your corner no matter what but here is your best friend telling you to fuck off if you and Serena can’t get your shit together. She knows better than anybody who this Gilead Wife in sheep’s clothing is yet she doesn’t care if you move out?

That isn’t the best friend you thought you had.

“Fuck,” she groans as she leaves the room, slamming the kitchen door shut in typically dramatic fashion, so emblematic of your mother.

It doesn’t sound like silence in the kitchen even if no one is speaking. There’s too much happening, and the pressure in your eardrums makes everything feel dense, electric and sharp. Loud. It’s not poetic; it’s not dramatic like that high-pitched ringing sound they’d always put into movies when bombs went off. It’s grating and oppressive and makes you want to shove your fingers so deep into your ears that you break all those teeny tiny bones once and for all. It hurts.

Everything about this hurts.

And you hate her for making you hurt again. Again, and again and again. All you feel now is hurt. The more you fought that fear and that pain and for this life to be something else beyond Gilead, the worse it got.

At this moment, you can’t even remember what you were arguing about a minute ago because all you can hear is the disdain in Moira’s echo, the slam of the door, and the horrible banging of silence against your eardrums. _I hate you_ , you want to scream but the words tangle around your throat. It’s true, you _do_ want to hate her completely and with every inch of your being, but you can’t commit to that any more than you can commit to love. Its thorns dig into your chest, twisting and winding over your skin as nettles pierce any hope you had of moving past this. You’re like that rabbit who tricked the fox to throw him into the briar patch, just to escape the tar.

Except this lacks the happy ending and you’re no trickster god. Nobody ever really talks about how agonizing the brambles are. They won’t kill you, no, probably not, but it’ll sure feel like death because you’re not actually a goddamn rabbit.

“She’s right.” 

Oh, there it is, the grating voice of reason. Serena takes it upon herself to be the adult one, to hold herself up as some sort of paragon of respect and maturity to your blubbering fool of juvenile tantrums, as if it hasn’t always been the other way around. The fact she is joining forces with Moira now makes the whole entire shitstorm even worse. Moira’s meant to be _your_ friend, on your side, and now they’re all turning on you. Exactly like your support group did.

Fury rips through your body at the betrayal.

“I don’t deserve this,” she says with no hint of irony and if you had thought the previous few seconds were as enraged as you could get, suddenly you find a whole new reserve, like drilling down to a whole new oil well, spraying rancid black sludge over everything. 

“What did you just say to me?” You honestly can’t believe your ears, that of all the people on the planet to talk to you about what they deserve, it’s Mrs. Waterford. Flames bellow up from your gut, licking at your throat until your skin burns. "You're really going to talk to me about what _you_ deserve?"

Bursting in your periphery like lightning, you see white. Blinding white rage. "Let's talk about what I deserve, how about that?" You draw in a stuttering breath. "Or what I _didn't_ deserve."

She merely stands there, her jaw clenched and eyes flashing. She's about to shatter from the brittle tension in her body and you've seen it a hundred times before. The vein in her temple is jutting out, and her hand is clenched around the hem of her shirt. Reading her like an encyclopedia, her body language screams at you to back off.

Like fuck, you will. She's not Mrs. Waterford anymore, and you're not her docile little Handmaid. Part of you wants to simply cry at how this dynamic still exists between you two. For years it had lain dormant, almost forgotten really, something close to a bad dream that had faded with the daylight.

They're not supposed to come back once they've been banished.

After everything, after every single _fucking_ feeling that has passed between the both of you, and raising a child together, living together, sharing a bed with her, fucking her, marrying her, it turns out nothing has really changed at all. She's still the same person she was in Gilead. 

Your pulse thickens, as your heart pushes black basalt sand through your veins instead of blood. It’s tight, dry, coarse. It is so dry inside the room, and every time you swallow it’s a choking drought, and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth. Still, it boils and chills at the same time.

“Wanna have that conversation, Serena? About what I _didn’t_ deserve?” The sounds from your lips snap and rupture the air around you. This time, she isn’t quite as docile as she’s played in the past few weeks. Everything she does reminds you of Gilead, not Serena Osborne. You’d both been avoiding exactly this for years.

She straightens her spine and there’s a flex of her fists as she clenches and lets go immediately. For a second, you expect her to hit you, like she always had when pushed the extra step too far. This time, she catches the urge before it escapes, and maybe that should be some type of comfort, but the fact she did that at all is the problem. She _thought_ about it, and that’s crime enough. The impulse is still there. Your hands begin to tremble of their own accord with the realisation there may never be a safe place for you ever again, and if it does exist, it’s nowhere near her.

After a huff, she snaps, “I said I was sorry.” Her voice lashes against you, so indignant and so fucking offended, as if she has any right to that emotion at all. Especially since she doesn’t sound all that apologetic either.

Finally, you get to laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation. “Right. You said you were sorry. Well, I guess that just erases everything then, doesn’t it? Great, thanks, Serena. You’re _sorry_.” Sarcasm drips down from the word as it falls out of your mouth, soaked in nothing but disdain.

Her apologies are worthless sound escaping from a cold echo-chamber. _Sorry_ can’t even come close to fixing any of this, and it will never make a dent in the horrors she put you through in Gilead. _Sorry_ doesn’t undo them kidnapping your daughter. It doesn’t take back the Red Centre; it doesn’t bring back Nick or your mom or Lillie or Janine or Alma or Omar or a single person lost to those evil powers. _Sorry_ certainly doesn’t erase the rape, every fucking month, on her bed with her hands in yours, and it will never, ever scrub that one—the worst one—from your memory. That’s etched in forever, to play on a loop every night before you drift off to a sleep still plagued with the aftermath of those years in Gilead. Her sorry means shit.

How does she _still_ not get that?

There it goes. Her eye twitches and her breath escapes in a furious shudder. She will hit you any moment, like always. And she steps closer, glowering at you and using her height to intimidate you again. Or try. That has never worked.

“What do you want then?” Sheer rage seethes from her words. 

“Nothing _you_ will _ever_ be able to give me,” you snarl with a feral strength you had no idea you still possess. It feels like pure power coursing through your blood and you’re not afraid of her. You dare her to smack you. Just once, Serena. Come on. Do it. _Sign your own death warrant._

She moves suddenly, too quickly towards you and out of well-learned conditioning, you jump back. But she’s so much bigger than you, her arms are like tentacles, like a whale harpoon really, shooting out to wound you within milliseconds. Your whole body seizes and flinches as her hands fall upon you.

Softly.

On your shoulders. Not your face, not your chest, not with an open palm or a closed fist. There is no way to fully repress the shudder that ripples down your back but the way your anxiety spiked just now is slightly eased with this recognition that she’s not using force against you. Not this time, anyway. Your muscles are all still coiled and tense but you don’t feel pain.

Her touch anchors you back into reality, and maybe a different one than you’ve been living in for a while now. This is the place where she doesn’t hurt you anymore, where she calms your nerves and wipes away your tears and holds you tightly, winding around you to block out the rest of the world and shutter your own memories from you. God, it’s been so long since she’s touched you and it almost works. It almost breaks the curse as you lean even that little bit into her.

“I can,” she insists, forcefully but in a whisper. “June.”

It’s bullshit, you mind screams. She has no fucking idea what it is that you really want and what you desperately need, because if she had, she’d have given it to you already. You wouldn’t be here, right now, in this spot with her pathetic, placating hands on you and that fake sincerity in her shaking voice. She’s a liar. 

All she has is “Sorry.”

Then she pulls you in, without consent, without warning and perhaps it’s meant to be a hug but it feels like an anaconda strangling you to death. The more you struggle, the tighter it becomes until your breathing is ragged and the flashes behind your eyes are Fred’s face, her face, Aunt Lydia’s, cattle prods and machine guns, black and red and white and blood and gentian blue satin. She has no clue what you need.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” Breaking free from her hold, you feel even more unsafe than you did when you thought she was going to slap you. Surprise registers across her face, eyes growing wide as if she could never have expected that reaction. She is such a stupid woman.

Still, ever the optimist perhaps, she reaches for you again. It’s always about the body, how she can control your body with hers, how she can quiet your body with hers. You twist so she only manages to grab ahold of your forearm, not too firmly but enough that she slides her grip down to your wrist and that’s all it takes.

Your body freezes. Her grasp isn’t even tight and you could pull away easily at any time, but it’s enough of a message. She holds you by one wrist with her good hand and your whole mind reels with terror again. Despite how it must display across your face, her lips settle in a firm line and she does not allow herself to weaken. This time, she holds on, knowing exactly what it must be doing to you. 

Something flickers behind her eyes as if she’s aware this should not be happening but that slimy inside part of her won’t relent. It’s the part of her that is used to getting whatever it wants, and that part doesn’t give a shit about you.

Your gaze meets hers briefly, silent except for the whirl of the refrigerator turning on in the background. So domestic, you think, noting the dirty dishes on the table still, the lunchboxes on the counter top, the row of tacky mugs from the thrift shop along the cupboard shelf. Leftover pasta rests on the stovetop, the same meal you both ate only an hour ago. And then you return your focus where it belongs, not on the illusion of normality you’d built for the last few years. It’s an impossible sort of normal that can never exist.

Still, that vein in her neck throbs as she resists doing anything more. What ecstasy a sharp knife could bring. Instead, you lock eyes with her and wrench your arm away from her. With little more than a whisper, you let out half of a threat.

“Don’t you ever, _ever_ put your hands around my wrists again.”

She doesn’t ask, ‘Or what?’ Because she knows better than anybody else what you’re capable of.

This was never going to end well, you realise with a newfound clarity. She seems to want to argue with your thoughts, like she can read them on your face. Her lips part from the angry line and for the slightest moment you remember kissing her, and how that felt to have it done in return, and how much freedom tasted exactly like Serena Joy. Too bad distance has confirmed that was merely a different kind of prison, a mirage really.

“It’s over,” you state with a startling amount of calm and surety considering how adrift you feel in this situation. Stepping past her, you turn for a moment and sigh. It hangs over your words with defeat. 

“I just don’t _like_ you, Serena.” A light, careless laugh manages to escape. “I _never_ have. That’s all there is to it. I needed something from you for a while, maybe, but that's over. I don’t like the person you were, or the person you are. I don’t even like the person you _could be_ and you don’t know how to change.”

Maybe that sinks in, because the glance of victory you take at her as you leave the room fools you for a second. You think there’s remorse in her eyes but it’s only a trick of the light.

* * *

You move out the next day with only the briefest explanations to Moira. She may hate Serena, but she doesn’t appear to see the positive side of what amounts to abandoning Nicole. You assure her that it isn’t the case at all, and you’ll work something out with Serena about custody and visitation. Fuck. If you’d just waited a few months and not let her sign those adoption papers. Divorce will have to wait until you’ve settled down a little more into something stable. 

Luke is the first to offer his sofa to you and it’s easy to accept. Really easy. You can’t imagine any better place to hide away from the horrible decisions you’ve made in the past year. Your ex-husband and your daughter, all together again. At last. Maybe this is what it took to really get back to yourself again. This whole Serena disaster was only a tool to help you on your journey, the long way around, back to Luke. Surprisingly, it still feels that way even when he hands you a number for a private therapist that will be covered by your refugee benefits, and is actually accepting new patients. Luke tells you it’s part of the deal of living with him. Great friends, freedom from her, and free therapy?

You should send her a fucking _Thank You_ card. Well, the divorce papers should be enough. 

When you take off your wedding ring and shove it in Luke's kitchen junk drawer, everything is immediately lighter. Within an hour, you don’t even notice anything missing anymore.

Despite all the excitement and relief rippling through your body, the first night on Luke’s sofa is uncomfortable. Not simply physically, since you’re so accustomed to a soft queen bed and a warm body next to you, but it’s like there are mice running around in the back of your mind, gnawing and scratching and digging around in all the darkness. There was once that children’s story of the hamster stuck in the walls, except it’s in your brain, and the relentless noise refuses to abate enough for you to sleep.

You don't want to remember it all. Things were so much better when every pitiful little memory was wrapped up and stored away in dusty old boxes somewhere deep in the recesses of your brain. Now someone has gone in, dumped them all out over the floor, and flung what was inside all around the room. It's a mess. It’s too much to clean up now, and suddenly history is spread out before you like the worst buffet you can imagine. 

Why can't you just forget again?

What you wouldn't give to pack up those memories and shove them back inside the nothingness, the cold black hole of repression. 

Please, god. Put them away again.

The overwhelming problem you face is that there had been a few moments of true happiness, with her. Honest to god, unbelievable contentedness. It stretched out over months even. Pulling taffy, blowing a bubble, all those things are so similar. Your eyes begin to sting with the knowledge that there's no way to throw these dark things into boxes again. You'll have to go through each and every single one, deciding what to do with them. 

Hoarders. That was the TV show once where people would hang into every thing until it destroyed their lives. And then, they had to reopen every wound in the process of saving themselves, making decisions about what is worth keeping and what was merely trash. 

Maybe memory could work that way too. 

Will she wait?

Of course she will. She doesn’t have anything better to do, and she needs you for her stupid press tour when the book is released. Yet another pantomime. 

The messed up part is that you don’t actually want her to wait. Well, a part of you doesn’t. You want her to leave you, to move on without you, and give you that final excuse to exorcise her from your life completely. If you can’t be around her, and if the very notion of her hands against your body makes you shudder in fear and repulsion, that is not somebody that should wait. If you can’t listen to her speak without hearing the echoes of every revolting, vile insult and idea she’s floated out to the world, that’s reason enough to divorce yourself from her. You loathe the way your memory pulls up receipts on every single shitty thing she’s ever done to you, every time she moves or breathes. And nothing is worse than how you cannot help the flinch when she so much as brushes by you.

None of that is healthy and you really need to escape.

You want to beg her to let you go this time. It will be the only promise you have ever needed her to keep.

Finally you can see clearly: There’s no future with someone you hate so very, very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Click thru for the cover of Serena's book](https://66.media.tumblr.com/1facb05c645740cc36b9eb33dde1d025/0a7e3888eb4b8aa6-86/s500x750/35dcdc20337f655a68f5d13055e34797b89a44b5.jpg)


	7. the advocate

Two weeks on the sofa seems to stretch on like two months but you’re slowly falling into a new routine. A happy routine where you and Luke are painstakingly rebuilding every lost piece of trust and kindness that used to exist. Every morning, you make breakfast for him and Hannah, who has no reason to stay at the other house anymore. That’s what it becomes: the Other House. The house where Nicole is. Where Serena is. Where Moira and Erin are. But you’re not there anymore and the few times you’ve returned to pick up clothes, or Nicole, you’ve had Moira’s assistance in ensuring Serena is nowhere nearby. Apparently, that’s not difficult because she spends a lot of time with Mark, her book agent, and the doctor. Moira tries to tell you how poorly she’s doing, but there is nothing you care about less than how Serena is coping with a pregnancy she wanted more than anything else in the world, including her own freedom and especially yours.

Serena Joy is no longer your problem.

Moira also reminds you that you’ve been here before, done this before, and the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, so be it. You’re fucking loony. This time you do truly believe there’s a chance to start over and you tell Moira that if she keeps this sort of bullshit up, you’re going to start thinking maybe she’s really the one in love with Serena.

That shuts her up really fucking fast.

She doesn’t bring up Serena again.

After two days, you regret snapping on Moira because something is missing from your conversations with her, something Serena-shaped, and you apologize all the same. The constant reminder of Serena had gnawed away at your patience, and each time she was mentioned, something boiled up that just blinded you with irrational and misdirected rage. Although Moira shrugs it off, especially since she's seen you through break-ups before, you still can't help the twinges of contrition about the way you snap at her occasionally, simply for telling you the truth you don't want to hear. Then another few days pass, and you consider yourself stupid for that as well. No, life is much clearer without the constant back and forth about the woman who is allegedly your wife. Certainly nothing about that word seems relevant. All the same, there is an emptiness inside. At night, when you’re alone on the uncomfortable sofa, your chest feels like it's collapsing in on itself. That makes you hate Serena even more for having that power even in her absence.

The nights at Luke’s seem so much longer, even when you bring Nicole with you. She’s restless and confused most of the time. The first few visits she saw it as a cool sleepover with her big sister. It was a novelty, a party. The more frequent they became, the more anxious they seem to have made her and no matter how many times you put a DVD of _Frozen_ into the ancient DVD player Luke picked up from the thrift shop, she’s no longer convinced this is a good thing you and her are doing if Mama isn’t here too. She doesn't quite look at Luke the way she looks at Serena, like she can't work out who he is and whether or not to trust him yet. She fidgets throughout every movie until she fitfully sleeps. You’ve explained it as best to your children as you can, but they know something is very wrong and the constant upheaval isn't helping assuage any concerns. In fairness, something has _always_ been very wrong between you two and it’s only taken this long to surface.

This time, you left Nicole at the house with Serena. It’s only you, Hannah, and Luke—like it used to be before. Except this time you don’t share a bed with him and Hannah doesn’t crawl in-between you when she has a bad dream. She yowls alone in her tiny room until either you or Luke comes running and crawls into her little bed. Luke had insisted you take his bed for the time being, but you don’t want to get too comfortable here or you may never leave. Everything is warm and quiet. He doesn’t share the apartment with anybody else, and it’s a mess, of course, but it’s the perfect size for a three person family.

Your memory jostles with the feelings from long ago, and the first time you moved in with him, before Hannah. You can’t remember being happier. Ever. You’d fucked in every room, not that there were many to choose from. You snuggled on the sofa and in bed. You’d snuck up behind him in the shower in the mornings. You cooked stews and pasta and made salads as he pulled out mid-range bottles of red wine and craft beer he’d bought from the brewery down the road. Fuck, everything was so much easier, made so much more sense then.

Maybe it is possible to have that again, now that Serena is out of your system for good. Before, when you’d first come to Canada, she was still too much on your mind and her hands and lips were too fresh a memory on your skin even if she wasn’t around.

It’s not that way anymore. You’ve eaten your fill.

Luke sometimes stares at you across the kitchen table with that soft look in his eyes, like he’s imagining a future again. You’d recognise it anywhere. The only thing missing is the way your heart no longer flutters at the attention or the prospect, but you blame it on how hard Gilead has made you. That gentle future and the scent of homemade pasta, the sound of laughter, with someone you dearly love, that is something you still crave deep in your bones. Why you can’t quite mesh it with the vision of Luke in front of you every day is just a temporary issue. Instead, you make apology pancakes, do apology errands for him, and pass him apology smiles for every shitty thing you've ever done to him, and to this family. At some point, it stops feeling like grovelling and just another common habit to adopt.

He’s already in bed tonight because he has an early day tomorrow, and so is Hannah. Meanwhile you’re left on the sofa, staring blankly at the TV screen as some 24-hour news channel drones on. It’s so depressing. Your leg fidgets restlessly under the throw blanket and your fingers seem incapable of not twitching. You’ve got to get out of here for a little while at least before you go crazy.

Thankfully, Luke has the car for work tomorrow. 

  
  


You’re out on the empty streets of Riverdale before you know it. The roads are slick with leftover rain from earlier in the evening, and the entire place has an eerie sort of neon pink, orange, and blue glow to it like those old movies about Hong Kong from the ‘80s. 

It’s not that surprising that the streets are mostly deserted at 1 AM and it’s exactly what you wanted. A quiet drive with only the late night radio for company. Something to clear your head and calm your nerves. In your senior college years, this was a particularly frequent pastime to get back to yourself. But then it was Boston roundabouts and traffic snarls. Sometimes you still get lost here in Toronto. It’s a simpler city to navigate but you still lack an instinctive feel for it.

Until you speed down Lakeshore and onto the Gardiner, that is. The road lifts into the sky and the downtown skyline comes into view against the black night. Reds and whites and golds and blues, blinking and shimmering in the air. Times like this you feel relieved that you can do this again. A few other cars zip by and you push the car to 120 clicks to keep up. The air seems thinner and cooler up here, or maybe that’s just the weight lifting from your shoulders. Maybe it’s the ubiquitous twangs of The Tragically Hip that seem to play every twenty minutes on every radio station here. You have no idea what a Bobcageyon even is, but the lull of the guitar and the way he raises his voice to wail, “That night in Toronto...” somehow fits too well with the mood you’re stuck in.

The world starts speeding by faster. Sooner than you realise, you’re flying over the disused hockey arena that used to host NHL games, but since there isn’t an NHL anymore, it’s only for regional finals and mostly sits abandoned. There’s talk of tearing it down and making it a park or immigrant intake and support centre. Nobody can agree on which it should be. So many people say there are already too many resources going towards Gilead’s refugees, so yes, an empty park seems like a better choice, of course. Less upkeep. Fewer undesirables in the condo city neighbourhood. Easier to turn a blind eye to the growing human disaster that is Gilead’s refugee crisis. The SkyDome passes too, but there’s no more baseball either. Just massive concrete and neon testaments to some history not so long ago but far enough that it barely seems real, all lying hollow and discarded. The heart of what was once a thriving city core feels as empty as your own.

Still, the CN Tower looms briefly until you’re past it and into the concrete and glass canyon of identical-looking condo buildings that line the freeway. You’ve gone too far west too quickly and you’ve got to turn around. Taking the next exit, you find yourself taking the route right back to Queen Street. You can find your way home from here. It’s just a straight line.

And then you remember, you don’t really live off Queen anymore, despite most of your things being there. That house, that Other House, is where Serena is. Luke lives further north, and east of there. You’d actually forgotten that you can’t go home.

_Home._

How is that still what your brain considers home? The thought alone brings the wisp of memory to your nostrils. Suddenly, all you can smell is her, everywhere. The musky scent of her skin, her sweat, the floral fragrance of her luxury shampoo that costs way too much, her stupid blue bubblegum-flavoured toothpaste she insists on sharing with Nicole. 

This is a very bad place for your thoughts to go right now, because you were meant to be driving to get your mind off all this bullshit.

What kind of toothpaste does Luke use? It bothers you that you have no idea, and can’t even remember what it was before Gilead. You wouldn’t be able to pick out the scent of his shampoo if your life depended on it. 

Eventually, you navigate to an all-night supermarket. The blinding white fluorescent tube lighting wakes you up, and knocks you back into some sense of reality. It’s not the place for you, on this side of the city. It would be better to drive back to Luke’s, walk up the stairs, and crawl into his bed. That’s the only answer you can find for how to fully scrub everything about Serena from your soul. You doubt he’d resist. He still loves you, you’re sure of that.

You cradle a Gatorade in one hand as you stand in the queue, waiting for the old man in front of you to finish drunkenly arguing with the cashier about the price of cream. There’s a flicker above; one of the garish lights is dying, and it flickers again, just to let you know. There have absolutely been horror films that started exactly this way. Next to you, there’s the magazine display and surely it’s some sort of cruel joke of the universe because your gaze falls right to the cover of _The Advocate_ , still arguably almost the same magazine focusing on gay issues that it was back before the editors all ran north to escape the purge in Gilead. And smack on the middle of that cover? Serena, in bold black and white, with her new name emblazoned across it. You read the byline and cringe, especially the part about “finding true love with her wife”.

The interview was a while ago, back when she was on the cusp of finalizing the edits for her book and it’s being published now probably to coincide with the book’s release. Everything Serena does is planned down to the exact minute. Or at least her agent makes sure of that. Still, it’s probably unlikely her agent had planned on this particular scenario, because even you hadn’t considered it. Driving around in the middle of the night to get this woman off your mind, stopping for a drink at a store, and then being faced with her image and the very real reminder of your relationship with her right there on a newsstand? Probably not what Serena’s agent was betting on. Although, if she had been writing some dark romantic comedy, perhaps this would have been completely predictable.

The magazine finds its way onto the counter beside your Gatorade. The light above flickers once more, something of an omen. The clerk looks at you with vague disinterest, then down at your two purchases. There’s a small smirk that crosses her face and for a second you’re paranoid that she recognises you as the Osborne who Serena’s stolen her name from. Instead though, she shakes her head, short brown hair flopping around.

“This woman’s shameless, huh?”

“What?” You really don’t want to have to have a conversation about Serena right now. This whole night wasn’t supposed to be about her at all.

“‘The truth about…’ Heh. The truth is she’s a cunt,” the girl mutters, and something in your shoulders stiffens without your permission. You’re allowed to think that, but you don’t want anybody else to say it. It sounds almost violent when people call Serena that. In your mind, there are images of pitchforks and torches; you can picture that sneer on Fred’s face in his study as he pulled off his belt. “She pretends to be one of us just to save her own skin. Fucked up.”

For a moment, you have no response because you’re not certain what she’s talking about. Who is Serena pretending to be? Who is the ‘us’ that Serena is faking membership in? A Gilead victim? An oppressed woman? A lesbian? A survivor? A human being? And is ‘us’ you and this girl, or this girl and whoever she’s imagining? Are you and she the same? It’s rude to ask people about Gilead in casual conversation, and it’s sort of an unspoken rule in Toronto just not to engage. But there’s always a particular look refugees have. It lurks behind their smiles and their eyes, and most of the time, like recognises like.

“Cash or card?”

You look at the total. $14.34. Fuck, magazines are expensive. Maybe Gilead had something good going on with banning them. “Card.”

Handing the card over, you’re not prepared for her to actually look at it. Of course, since all the banking fraud and increase in theft since the economy began to teeter even here in Canada, you know they’re supposed to check that at least the name reasonably seems like it could belong to the person in front of them, very few people ever do, and even fewer check ID. Canadians just still maintain that strange trust. This clerk does though, no doubt part of a regimented company policy. 

The second she skims your last name, you know she’s put two and two together and you wish you’d just never picked up the damn magazine. You could have paid in cash for your drink and never had this entire conversation.

She cuts her brown eyes at you, suspiciously almost, and then after a beat, laughs. “What a weird coincidence!”

You’re just thankful she’s clearly never read Serena’s book, nor most of her articles where June is mentioned by name. _June, June, my wife June, June my Handmaid, June, Nicole’s mother June_. Every second word. It’s in everything Serena has written and the clerk hasn’t read a word. Yet, she still feels entitled to call her a cunt in her emotional, reactive ignorance. You notice once again how it really doesn’t matter what is happening to women south of the border, humans will consistently repeat the mistakes of history. 

“Yeah, pretty wild,” you agree, as light-heartedly as possible. Ew. Quickly gathering your items, you make a quick exit before the girl opens the magazine and reads the actual article. You’re certain there’s a mention of you, by name. Probably even a photo.

It’s a little bubble, your car. Everything outside is muffled enough, not that there’s very much traffic anyway. You flip through the magazine by the light of the streetlamps. This woman here, the same one that has a 6-page feature spread detailing her life and even intimate parts of yours, is who you married. Something akin to confusion slinks through your veins. And your photo is there too, with her and your children. You don’t even remember having that photo taken or giving the magazine permission, but you’ve signed so many model releases in the past few months that it must have been one of those. The cover photoshoot… Well, that must have been done ages ago, before she was so visibly pregnant or they have excellent graphics artists. She'd never shown you the proofs of this one so it’s all brand new, even how your throat tightens just looking at her again like this. It's not surprising she’s wearing a snake pendant around her neck. How fitting. 

Like some lonely, pathetic, delusional teenager with a crush, you briefly consider what it would be like to cut the pages out and paste them on your bedroom wall like you used to do with all the heartthrob boys your friends gushed over. No, you hate her, your mind chimes in. This is not a good person. This is not somebody to idolize.

Smacking the magazine closed in an attempt to extricate yourself from her hold, you carelessly toss it to the floor of the passenger side. That’s quite enough. You need to get home to Hannah and Luke.

When you enter the apartment, Luke is awake, waiting on the sofa as if he’s a watchful German Shepherd. Even the look in his eyes is the same as your Grade 6 best friend’s dog. Minnie. Minnie was her name and Luke looks just like Minnie right now. That same sadness. The same concern. The same way of his knowing eyes boring holes into your soul.

Before he even asks, you give him a reason for your absence. “I went for a drive. Had to clear my head.”

It’s strange to be standing in the middle of his apartment, as he waits quietly for you to explain yourself. It’s not something you’ve ever had to do before, and Luke isn’t exactly known for his thoughtful silence. He explodes or he sulks with intent. He never just _waits_. There’s a predatory sense of discomfort here, as if you’ve been caught sneaking around with somebody else, like you’re the hotshot husband coming home with your secretary’s lipstick on your collar. Except all you have in your possession this time is a half-finished bottle of red Gatorade in one hand and his car keys in the other. You realise the magazine is still on the floor of the car. No doubt he’ll find that tomorrow morning on his way to drop Hannah off at school.

Instead of flying into a petulant rant about how you shouldn’t just disappear at night, he sighs and holds up a phone. “Serena called.” He sighs again, longer this time and drops the phone on the table. “I came down to tell you and you were gone.” 

There’s an insinuation along the lines of, ‘Well, at least I know you weren’t sneaking around with her again.’ As if. That ship has sailed. You drop his keys on the table near the front door.

“Why?” And why didn’t she just call you first? You’ve had your phone on all night and it hasn’t rung once.

All he does is shake his head, and finally you convince your muscles to relax. He’s not angry. You’ve become so accustomed to being on-guard whenever anybody is even remotely tense around you. Serena’s done that. Gilead’s done that, and you can’t quite break the habit of reactionary defensiveness. With that awareness, you move over to sit beside him. The springs creak a little under the rundown sofa and it makes something crawl across your skin; it sounds like your bed in Gilead.

“What did she want?” you try again, hoping for something more than a dismissive head shake and ignoring how bits of discarded memory scratch at the skin on your chest.

“She said you need to pick up Nicole from playgroup tomorrow.”

“Why?” It’s not your day. Tomorrow you’d planned to spend it with only Hannah and Luke, making pancakes with chocolate chips for dinner. Of course, Nicole is always wanted, but for some reason, you just can’t picture her there. Not in a scene like that. That probably makes you a terrible mother, but there’s something you need from just this memory of you, Luke, and Hannah. If you can block out the world for just one night and pretend that Gilead never happened, you’re convinced you’ll be in a better mood and more healthy headspace later. Ignoring reality has always worked so well for you in the past, hasn’t it?

“She says the doctor wants her to stay over at the hospital for observation until the baby is born.”

It’s really quite easy not to let any emotion show as you hear something like that when you realise you actually are not feeling anything at all. Something remains numb inside when you think of how difficult her pregnancy must be for such a drastic request. Another, significantly less numb part of you thinks that slimy Mark Tuello will probably be there right next to her, touching her hand, all smiling and supportive instead of you, taking your place. It's a good thing you're not jealous and you don't want to be there or else that knowledge may sting a bit too much. Luke, however, and to great surprise, seems legitimately concerned. Maybe not for her, but rather, you suspect he also had some idyllic fantasy about how to restart your little life together and this is not part of his plan. Being reminded of your war criminal wife at every turn doesn’t make for great romance. Being reminded of your child from another man doesn’t help either.

A non-committal _Hmm_ is all you can muster before he studies you closely and then falls back against the sofa cushions. You’ll have to get a permanent bed ready for Nicole in Hannah’s room. With a sort of aimless purpose, your mind wanders through all the menial tasks you’ll need to do in order to prepare this apartment for a toddler to live in. A night or two is one thing; a lifetime is another.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Luke asks, and you glance over to him, with his one arm stretched along the back of the sofa. It’s so inviting. It’s been so long.

Without permission, you shift back and practically crawl next to him, leaning into the crook of his shoulder, just like old times. He still smells like Luke, and the same inane sports commentary is on the TV that he always liked. You used to sit for hours like this, just happy to be close to each other.

But, now, he doesn’t feel quite right so you shift a little, attempting to find that perfect spot that felt so right before. You don’t fit together the same way anymore. He has hardness where you expect soft, and the proportions are all wrong. He doesn’t smell the way you want. Again, you squirm, stubbornly insisting to yourself that it’s just awkward because it has been so long. In a few seconds, you’ll find the magic spot from deep within your memories.

Why can’t you find it? Neither of you is really much different physically than before. Scientifically, there’s no excuse. His arm falls heavily over your shoulders. Too heavy, perhaps. After a long while, he finally speaks again as a single finger idly runs over your arm.

“Do you miss her?” He’s quiet, trembling a little unless you’re imagining that. You shift once more. It doesn’t really help; you simply cannot find the right placement.

“She’s a terrible person,” you answer, quickly. Maybe too quickly but with more than enough anger.

He scoffs for a moment, some measure of pain cracking through his voice. “That isn’t even close to the question I asked.”

“Isn’t it?” To you, they’re pretty much the same thing. Why would anybody miss somebody who is awful? At least, you’ve almost certain you don’t miss her because she is horrible, and difficult, frustrating, brutally stubborn, ignorant, selfish, mean, ill-tempered, arrogant, dogmatic, manipulative… She is literally everything you hate wrapped up in a single woman. Who would miss that?

“Come on, June. You know it’s not.”

But it is, you want to argue. At the same time, you wonder why your tongue won’t just wrap itself around the word ‘ _No’_. It’s so easy to do, yet you can’t. Instead, you announce with a startling amount of poise, “She deserves every shitty thing she gets.”

For a while, Luke just breathes, steadily and calmly beside you. The gentle rise and fall of his chest begins to lull your nerves into relaxation. He sighs, still letting your words linger around him. “Are you sure you’re talking about her?”

Fuck him. Seriously, _fuck you, Luke_. Of course you’re talking about her and whatever sense of calm reprieve you’d had is vanishing quickly. He probably senses your irritation because he slips out from beside you. “Goodnight, June.” Before you can even try to argue further, he’s already halfway up the stairs. 

Fuck him.

_Are you sure you’re talking about her?_

Of course, you are. He’s such an asshole. He’s always played games like this, even back when you were together, twisting your words around to make them into something they were never meant to be. This time, it really hurts though because he doesn’t know. He really can’t comprehend exactly how much Serena has destroyed your life, and your heart, and your sanity. The things you’ve done because of her, the person you’ve become because of this obsession you have with her. This fucking _addiction_ to her. Yes, she very much deserves every ounce of pain and punishment that she has coming to her. 

As if you’re doing this to punish yourself for the fact you can’t imagine a life without her in it, and how fucking wrong that is on every level. As if you’re punishing yourself for being who you are.

What would Luke know anyway? He didn’t live in Gilead, he’s not a woman, and he hasn’t even had it that difficult here in Canada either.

Like Hell you miss her. Like Hell you’re doing this to punish yourself for how much you feel for her and how inherently wrong that is to absolutely everybody else. Self-harm has never been part of your repertoire, nor has self-flagellation about things you can’t change. At least not that you’re aware of. 

Why can’t this all just be about Luke?

* * *

Of course it isn’t. It will never be, but you persevere anyway. It’s likely he understands that because one night you decide you’ve had enough of his horrible sofa. It’s been weeks. Weeks of making him breakfast and watching TV with Hannah, and late night existential nightmares about who you are and what your purpose is anymore. The sad truth is, you don’t actually sleep well and it’s easy to blame the physical space, but even the most stubborn parts of you recognise that something is missing. When it’s not nightmares, it’s insomnia, and when it’s not insomnia, it’s a persistent, drumming ache in your bones. Now Nicole is here, and refuses to settle properly in Hannah’s room. Two days of fitful rest as your baby cries all night, which makes Hannah upset and angry too because she has school. You know she’s crying for Serena in some way. She knows something is wrong, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. Serena’s in hospital, living her new life, and this is how it’s going to be from now on. The sooner Nicole understands that bad things happen, the better for everyone.

Instead of a nice, comfortable bed, you’re still on a musty sofa that must have been passed down through at least five different thrift shops. You fall asleep on it, and wake up a few hours later just like every night so far, except the difference this time is the pounding ache between your legs. It’s been a few weeks without that unfortunate reminder of what’s missing, and what’s worse is you know exactly why this has started again. The dream is still sticky and fresh in your memory, like the juice dripping down your chin after biting into a summer-ripe melon. Her mouth on your neck, on your tits, on your body. Her fingers curled deep inside you. Her skin hot against yours. Wet. _So_ wet. Her heavy thigh slick with your come and hers. Her teeth dragging across your shoulder, her fingernails biting into your hips. Her breathing ragged, panting curses interspersed with your name. And then there’s her weight, pressing you down, grinding and pulsating as you scrape at her for mercy. Even in your imagination, she can make you come like nobody else ever has. 

Maybe you’d be ashamed that you’re on your ex-husband's sofa furiously and somewhat resentfully rubbing your clit and thinking about Serena Joy, if you had anything left in you to feel shame. But you’re empty, and all you want is to soothe the angry, insistent throb that your dream has involuntarily brought on. Why won’t she leave you alone? Worse perhaps, why can’t you leave her alone? You make yourself come, your fingers soaked, and it doesn’t make you feel any better. 

Perhaps you should take a page out of her playbook and just drunkenly fuck random people to hurt yourself. Yes, you’re aware how agonizing her experiences were and how that was just a new form of self-harm for her, a way to brutally punish herself in the only way she had available. But hey, she got her baby out of it. A penance baby. Torture baby. The only problem is you don’t want another baby. You want something more. 

It’s something very simple. You want to touch another human being and have it appreciated. To reach out, slip your fingers along the creases of skin, and feel warmth moving under your palms. You want to bring someone to the brink of rapture with your tongue, to hear the whimpered moans of your name. There is nothing more you miss right now than being able to caress, to graze, to stroke, to feel. You crave the way she desired you. You miss feeling needed, that way. It’s too pathetic, you are aware, to be so starving for touch and validation even in a world now where it is free for all.

So, as you creep into Luke’s bedroom, you accept that life isn’t going to always follow the easy path; sometimes it’ll be winding and treacherous and glacial in pace. You’d gone around and around in loops, circling this singular outcome and finally everything is coming in to land. He grunts in surprise as you crawl under his duvet.

“What are you doing?” he grumbles into the darkness and you purposefully ignore the irritated, hesitant tone.

As you crawl closer, you sigh. “The sofa isn’t comfy.” There’s something a bit strange even to you in the way your voice goes up, in that cutesy way you loathe and it's almost as if you can no longer recognise this repulsive creature that has taken over your own body.

To your surprise, he doesn’t roll over to welcome you. All you receive is a muttering of your name with the sort of impatience normally reserved for when Hannah is doing something annoying. “June. Don’t.”

Instead of arguing with words, you take to a common tactic employed with another reluctant bedfellow of yours: your hand slides out and along the ridge of his shoulder, down his arm and across his ribs. It’s been a very long time since you’ve felt him this way. Again, you ignore the fact that it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for you. There’s no thrill, there’s no comfort, it’s almost platonic. More like he’s a piece of treasured antique furniture. It would help if he’d give you some sort of encouragement. 

“Luke…”

He shrugs off your hand, and that stings more than anything else has in a long time. “You’re not being fair, June.” 

What’s not fair about this? This is exactly what he’s always wanted and here you are, finally ready and healed enough to give it to him, and therapy is slowly proving that to you. Your future is his future again. To assure him that you’re serious, again you reach out, this time sliding your hand under his t-shirt. Hannah deserves this. You deserve someone who loves you, despite everything. You deserve to be able to love without so much guilt and shame and utter fucking confusion. You need that permission.

Luke apparently can’t give you that because he shirks away, not quite slapping your hand off, but very close to it. “Stop. I’m not doing this again.” Before you have a chance to quiz him on this supposed thing he would be doing over, he continues with the feeblest excuse you’ve ever heard. “You’re married, remember?”

“Wow,” is the only thing that comes out. “Really? That’s where you’re going? You were married too, remember?”

That was the whole issue. That’s why you even got made into a Handmaid in the first place: _his_ adultery, not yours. You’re not the one who cheated. And it’s a bit too soon to throw that whole clusterfuck back in your face. “That didn’t stop _you_ , or us.”

Something bubbles out of him in a quiet roar, frustrated to his core, as he sits up in bed and flicks on the bedside lamp. “Marriage really doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?” 

That is really unfair.

“How many is it now, June? Two? Three people? Maybe even more? One of whom fathered a child of yours. The other one is the mother of that kid on paper. What do you even think marriage means if this is how easily you toss it aside?”

Your marriage to Serena wasn’t about love, you want to argue. It was strategy and convenience. (The fact you’re already thinking about it in the past tense should be enough to convince even yourself that it’s over.) Still, you can't bring yourself to say those things out loud for a reason you're not even certain of, like admitting defeat perhaps. Shame, maybe. And the fact sometimes when you think about her, you recall how different that wedding night had felt for a little while, and how safe it felt, just for those few minutes, dancing with her.

Not to mention, you never would have cheated on Luke with _anybody_ if it hadn’t been for the very specific circumstances of Gilead, and how they warped every last brain cell into survival mode. But the fact is, undeniably, he’s right. If anybody was to look at your track record from an objective point of view, it looks bad. You slept with a married man and felt no sympathy for his wife, then married him. During the course of that marriage, you slept with another man and had his child—even after he was married to another woman, then slept with a different married woman, and was also the other woman in her husband cheating on her. (However, you give yourself a pass on that last one because it’s not as if it was your choice.) Then you married her, had her adopt your child, and are currently attempting to break yet another set of vows you made to her with your ex-husband. 

On paper, that all looks pretty gross. Even you can admit that maybe you have a problem with respecting the institution of marriage.

Except this time, he’s not letting you forget it.

Maybe you are being a really shitty person right now. Maybe you always have been.

It’s like before your divorce, but after you’d come to Toronto. It was before you started seeing—no, just _fucking_ Serena again. One night Luke reached out in bed just like old times, with that way his fingers just slipped up the small of your back, asking permission and assuming intent. You recall turning over, kissing him. But that’s about as far as it went that time, because your hands slid down, over his boxers, over his hips and lingered, lightly tracing that juncture at the bottom curve of his ass and his upper thigh. For some reason you didn’t understand at that moment, he’d frozen and moved away, studying you quizzically. 

_What are you doing_ , he’d asked, with a sliver of hurt covering the confusion in his question. He knew then, right before you realised what had happened. That move, that tiny brushing of your fingers wasn’t for him. That was something you did to _her_. Serena’s body had a lot of secrets she hadn’t even discovered until you came along and that was one of them. She was so incredibly sensitive in that spot; it’d drive her wild every single time you teased her skin right under her ass. She’d squirm and writhe and gasp for your attention. It was like a secret switch to melt her into desperate, wholly aroused putty under your hands, or lips, or tongue.

He knew right then that you weren’t thinking about him, even if he didn’t know who exactly you were thinking of. You knew very well that he loathes being tickled or touched that way.

Like a bucket of ice water, that was the end of it.

This is like that, except he’s putting a stop to it before you can even pretend. You won’t be breaking any vows to Serena, not with Luke anyway. Whether it’s simply because he doesn’t want Serena Joy Waterford’s sloppy seconds, or he’s grown some sort of marriage-respecting conscience, you don’t know. All you can be sure of is you won’t be sleeping with him as long as you’re still legally married to her. Part of you doubts now that even after that, Luke will be willing. Everything about his body and words screams to leave him be, please let him move on, just be a fucking _friend_ for once instead of looking for sex to cover all the gaping pain inside.

“Fine,” is all you mutter and turn over although, you are loathe to admit, you completely understand that he deserves better than the piece of shit you're offering. Well, you’re not giving up the warmth and comfort of this bed, but you’ll reluctantly accept that you’ll be sharing it with somebody who doesn’t want you there. And isn’t the person you really wish he was.

* * *

It should be booze in the cup, not coffee. Maybe whiskey on the rocks with a twist of orange, or just straight vodka. Keep it simple. Bitter, highly caffeinated hot water drowned in cream and sugar isn’t exactly the panacea you need at the moment, but it’ll have to do because Moira refuses to accompany you to a bar at 2:30 in the afternoon. She doesn’t quite understand the gravity of the entire situation, or the fact you suspect you have managed to alienate not just Luke, but both your daughters, and now your very own therapist in the span of 12 hours. Time will tell if Moira is next on your list of collateral damage.

Briefly, you wonder if this is what Serena’s life is like on a regular basis. It must be something one gets accustomed to if you do it so frequently. _No_ , and that is precisely why your shrink wasn’t happy with you today: talking about Serena incessantly. Ruminating on your relationship with her, shoving her into every little crack of your life as if she’s the filler for the chilly drafts that sneak through the walls you’ve built.

Everyone is getting really fucking sick and tired of your little obsession with your drug of choice.

At least you’ve held your tongue so far, but Moira must suspect something is up since you already suggested that sketchy dive bar on Gerrard which is only populated by junkies with nothing left to lose, grey-haired lifelong alcoholics, and that one really loud lady that walks up and down the streets screaming about squirrels. Instead, Moira said coffee, overlooking Riverdale Park. No compromises. It has to be coffee or nothing.

And, fine. It’s nice. A little more pricey than the types of shitty insta-brew places—you struggle to even call them cafes—that you often end up at due to your very limited spending money. It’s nice to treat yourself every so often, and today perhaps it’s well-deserved. 

She’s chosen a quieter corner, away from the bustling queue of people seeking iced coffees on this particularly warm day. Canadians are still as crazy as ever. Winter has barely passed and already a little sunshine is all it takes from them to crawl out from hibernation and into coffee shops for summer drinks. Next thing you know, it’ll be the insanely ubiquitous patio season that swoops in like a disease every spring. Sure, in Boston the coming warm weather was something to celebrate too, but here they can be in parkas still, but if it’s March and not raining, they are demanding patio seating. There are a lot of things you’ll never become used to about this place.

Moira leans back in her seat, tilting her tea against her lips and regarding you silently, narrowed eyes and all. The conversation thus far has been light, teasing even, if you didn’t actually know Moira better you might actually be lulled into a calm. She’s your best friend for a reason however, and that comes with its own inborn knowledge that she is not going to let anything slide.

“What?” you finally ask, placing your half-empty mug down on the tiny table.

“Nothing.” How can she seem so smug? What does she even have to be smug about?

With a casual shrug, she smiles. “Any reason you wanted to go get wasted in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Do I need one?”

Moira stares for a long moment, purses her lips, and blinks slowly. “Nope,” she chuckles at your defensiveness. “But you usually have one.” Sipping again on her tea, she pauses. “And you have a look. Something happen with Luke recently?”

Oh. She thinks—oh no. Letting out a loud scoff, you can’t help but roll your eyes. “Don’t even start.”

“What? It’s good!” After a second, she sighs, losing the gleeful tone of her previous words at what she thinks has happened between you and your ex-husband. “You shouldn't punish yourself for being happy, just because it’s not with _her_.” Of course Moira won’t actually speak the name of the devil. It summons her ungodly power. What would happen if she said it thirteen times in front of a mirror?

Sometimes she can be so stupid. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“Yeah? Am I though?”

“Yeah, you are.” 

Perhaps she picks up on the hint of regret in your voice because the smile she’d been hanging onto drops just a little as doubt creeps in. Silence drifts over you both for too long really and you occupy yourself with taking careful sips of your coffee and staring at anything other than her face. The barista is blonde, young...ish, maybe. She’s pretty, you note with a wistful sort of longing but whether it’s for your own lost youth or something else, you can’t decide. She seems happy, even working what has to be a shitty food service job in this struggling economy where way fewer people buy such nice and fancy coffees anymore. Tips can’t be great. Nobody really has any spare change. The customers seem to like her though, surely that helps pay the bills. As she moves around the small space, a silver cross glints off her skin from where it dangles around her neck. Pleasant. Unobtrusive. Just a token of belief.

You make it about ten seconds after seeing that before thinking about Serena again. Ten whole glorious seconds of just regarding another person without having your thoughts held hostage by addiction. It is very possible you’re staring in a perturbing way because Moira snaps her fingers in your face, startling you out your consideration of what Serena maybe was like at that age. Maybe she was just like the barista. Maybe she even was a barista. There’s no way to know because nothing was ever yours. She never gave you that.

“Yo, loser,” Moira snaps again. “Enough.” She snorts and gives you a dismissive once over. “What, you suddenly have a thing for any pretty blonde that gets within five feet of you?” She almost sneers but her eyebrow cocks in disbelief. “Shit, I thought I was bad. You need to get fucking laid.”

“Oh, really?” Somehow that isn't the main thought in your head anymore and it feels weird to experience that absence.

“Yeah, and it’s not gonna happen here.” Moira sure is one to talk. She hasn’t had a single serious relationship since coming to Canada. Then again, she also isn’t obsessed with her past mistress either. It's difficult to tell who is the healthier of the two of you when it comes down to it. One minute she’s pushing the idea of you and Luke, and the next thing you know, she’s suggesting some random one night stand with God knows who.

Considering how much more well-adjusted everyone seems to believe she is, perhaps she has a point. It’s vaguely possible she’s actually offering good advice this time.

“Okay.” Your lips curve into what could possibly be a partially evil smile as you accept her dare. “Take me out.”

Screw Luke and screw Serena. It’s about time you had a night out with your best friend and no strings attached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Click thru for The Advocate cover!](https://66.media.tumblr.com/602f97c85fab41cc220e6cc9dc9b11f2/0a7e3888eb4b8aa6-f2/s500x750/c8c79921a0c77a39008db0b7bd8d5612b1d46127.jpg)


	8. the june your mother warned you about

Three simple rules: No blondes. No ex-Wives. No war criminals. 

Two of those seem easy enough, but the first one? Has Moira even seen the people here? At least a third of them are blonde, by nature or by bottle. God, if any of them are in a blue dress and threaten your children, you’re a goner. You wonder if you should have taken Moira up on her compromise of a regular bar, full of straight people instead. You’d easily find a man, any man really. Shouldn’t be particularly difficult. But being the good friend you are, you’d understood this is as much about Moira as it is you and there is nothing for her at the local pub or hipster bro watering hole. What’s left of The Village will have to do.

You know once it was a fun spot to be, full of gay bars and clubs. You’d seen it on the news in Boston that year Canada legalised gay marriage and Pride was on everyone’s lips. It doesn’t look so lively now. Most of the storefronts that aren’t boarded up and covered with graffiti have turned into cheap retail shops specializing in bongs and ugly t-shirts, if not tiny immigrant grocery stores. A few used bookstores that seem like fronts for seedier undertakings are scattered amongst the ruin. It’s sad, really. Lonely. You’d thought, erroneously obviously, that Canada was impervious to everything that happened south of here. Maybe the gays all moved away; maybe they found that other areas of the city were just as welcoming, or cheaper. Whatever the reason, the small spattering of clubs is all you have to choose from now, and Moira knows them all like she was born right there on the sidewalk at Church and Wellesley.

It’s damp. That’s the first thing you notice. The air itself is humid with sweat, and breath, and body heat. There’s a smell too, much like old beer soaked into floorboards mixed with a cacophony of different perfumes and shampoos. Lighting snakes up your spine with memories of college. Fuck, it’s been so goddamn long since you’ve been to a nightclub at all. Maybe the last time was with Luke? Yes, it was definitely with him and somehow, the space beside you is cold in his absence. Your hand feels heavy, and you can’t remember the idiotic reason you decided to wear your wedding band when you’re on a mission to break those vows specifically. Maybe simply to fucking rub it in. You want to be two fingers knuckle-deep in a hot stranger with her come dripping over your stupid wedding ring. _That’ll show Serena_ , or something.

Moira takes your hand gently and leads you to the bar on the first floor. The black-haired beefcake behind the taps gives you a smile with warm brown eyes twinkling and you know is perfected from years of hospitality work. It has nothing to do with actually flirting with you. He’s as gay as can be. A snicker erupts without your consent when you consider how much he looks like Nick, if Nick had been a slightly different man with slightly different tastes. 

Two double vodka sodas and two shots of the shittiest rail bourbon ever slide out in front of you after she orders for you both. Moira is going hard tonight. Slamming the empty shot glass down, she roars and chugs back half her vodka in a few large gulps. Moira drunk is only mildly more bearable than Moira high on cocaine. Both aren’t exactly people you feel the patience to put up with in this state of mind. Something catches her eye in the shadows, and you know that glance anywhere. Within a few moments, Moira’s patted you on the shoulder and has wandered off to score. Probably coke. Great.

There’s a floral breeze as a girl, thankfully a brunette, sidles up next to you with a smile. It takes everything in you to force a tight smile back. Without thinking you swallow a mouthful of vodka and revel in the burn down your throat. 

“Hi,” she tries. Her voice is very high. Nasally and squeaky. There’s no rough timbre to it, no nuance and something about the sound draws nails down the chalkboard of your back. Yet, her face seems sincere and nothing makes you feel worse than immediately being a judgmental bitch. That’s not really your style and never has been.

“Hi,” you offer in return, a slight lilt of apology in your tone although she would have no idea what for. “How’s it going?” How the hell do people pick each other up anymore? You’re so out of practice it’s laughable. Your last relationship started with borderline hatesex in your prison cell; the one before that was basically Wife-sanctioned prostitution, and the one before that had Moira dangling a pathetic Tinder profile in front of his face. 

She laughs, just a little, and you wish you could stop the involuntary flinch at the sound of her voice and manage to hopefully successfully play it off like bad tic. “Could be better,” she admits, before signalling to Nick’s gay twin. Looking down at your drink, she smirks. “Vodka?”

With a nod, your shoulders begin to relax a little. “Yeah.”

“Two vodka shots, please,” she calls out. “And a kamikaze. Drink, not shooter.”

This is bad. Too many nights you barely remember have started almost exactly this way. When shots are the first game, it’s bound to get messy. 

Fuck it.

Maybe that’s the only way to get through it.

  
  
Thirty minutes later, you’re in a perfectly acceptable and pleasant conversation about nothing important. You’ve had more interesting discussions with Nicole and you’re a bit convinced she’s part turtle. But this is what people do, you suppose. They talk to each other about banal topics while pounding back vodka, and pretend to be interested so that maybe a hour or two later they can get naked and have mediocre, sloppy sex that they want to run away from after.

“So, like, what are you?”

The question throws you off for a moment, because whenever you’ve been asked that, it’s been Gilead-related. The answer was either a patronymic signifier of your Commander, or here in Canada: survivor, ex-Handmaid. Some label like that. This isn’t a therapy group. She’s asking something you’ve never really had to answer out loud before.

Instead of leaping at the chance, you hedge, hoping to avoid it altogether. “What?”

She giggles a little. “Like, who... are you into?”

“Oh.” Where is Moira to save you from this? Blow can’t possibly be more entertaining to her than witnessing the way you’re trying desperately not to wriggle out of this conversation as quickly as possible. Somehow it seems like there’s meant to be a correct answer to the question because the expression on Julie’s— _Jules_ , she insists—face is far too expectant. 

“I’m bi,” she states, with an odd air of triumph that comes off as borderline phony to your ears, but you’re also a miserable cynic these days. Something about the way she grins puts a sliver of uneasiness into the conversation. Maybe she’s just new. Maybe this is still exciting for her to announce to almost strangers in a safe place like this. Maybe you should give her a break and not immediately assume absolutely everybody else in the world is out to trick or hurt you in some way because you’re still clearly hung up on someone who was.

With a casual shrug, you offer her a small smile in return. You hadn’t really thought much about it, in all honesty because there always seemed to be more pressing issues than what label to apply to yourself. Issues like what to call Serena, and the way discussing it in even the most roundabout ways would make her physically squirm at the word “lesbian” as if it was some symptom of the Spanish flu, were far more entertaining. Well, if it is an indicator, she is Patient Zero and will forever be symptomatic. Moira was the best at pressing those particular buttons, but where is she now? 

“Same, I guess.” Yeah, sounds about right. Why not?

That must be exactly what Jules wants to hear because she laughs in that grating high-pitched way of hers and actually claps her hands together. Nothing seems more ominous than that over-the-top reaction. She waggles her drawn-on brows at you and everything in your body seizes. As if it was some premeditated plan, a man wanders up beside her, bald and definitely a good ten years older than you. His tight t-shirt has the faded logo of some rock band and now you’re certain this isn’t going to be a good exchange. The leer across his lips is evidence enough.

“June, meet Hudson.” Her voice goes up in pitch even further, as if it’s possible. “He’s my boyfriend.”

And there it is.

“We were thinking, that if you wanna get out of here, you could come back to our place?”

Moira had warned you about these people who seem to have no shame in crawling out of the woodwork for their own selfish fantasies. These women who aren’t even interested in other women, at all, but want to please their meathead boyfriends, those men who think that maybe if they can’t please one woman, they’ll miraculously be able to handle two at once. Hudson nods to the exit. “We’ve got lots of vodka at home. And more.”

As if that is really what you’ve concerned about. Right now, they could have a 70-gallon vat of the stuff in their apartment and you still wouldn’t feel anything remotely resembling temptation for this proposition. You’re not even close to drunk enough to consider it and probably never could be, ever. You have had your fill of perverse threesomes from Hell. Do they—no, how could they know? It’s not like you told her where you’re from and what you’ve experienced. Slipping your vivid recall of those rape-fuelled encounters into casual conversation at a bar seems far from polite, but then neither does this situation. 

Then it hits you as you feel the weight on your finger and anger flares to life in your gut. Holding up your left hand, you dangle your wedding band in front of them. “Actually,” you begin with as much control and subtle poison as you can muster. “I’m married. I’m just here with my bestfriend.”

Brainless, perhaps, is what they are. There’s a blank look on the boyfriend’s face that makes it clear that is of no consequence to him but Jules, she looks both confused and frustrated. Her voice is a weak peep when she finally finds it again. “So?”

Now, it’s time to bring out the big guns because the back off signals obviously are being lost in the empty space between their eyeballs and their brain cells. “You know Serena Joy Waterford—Serena Osborne? The one on the cover of _The Advocate_ this month?” There are not that many magazines still in publication so they would have been bound to see at least a copy at some corner store, supermarket, or pharmacy. And Serena’s hot, and incredibly controversial. Definitely people take notice. “That’s my wife.”

It’s not a lie, exactly. She is, quite literally, your wife still. Nobody else has to know that you’re estranged, sleeping in your ex-husband’s bed while she lives in a bleach-laden hospital getting touched by everyone except you. 

Julie’s brown eyes go wide as she elbows her boyfriend. Oh, she recognises the name, with a careful look at you it seems finally she recognises you as well. It would be pretty hard not to live in this city and not have at least a passing familiarity with the Gilead war criminal who walks amongst its streets, graces its news channel every couple weeks with some rally or controversial speaking engagement or book launch or governmental scandal from south of the border, and ends up authoring articles in every major news publication from Halifax to Vancouver. Serena has been nothing if not prolific. The fun part about dropping Serena’s name in times like this is that nobody has forgotten her role in Gilead. She’s terrifying. And the way your new company both glance around as if she’ll pop out from behind a chair is at least amusing enough that your sheer annoyance is tempered for a little bit.

A jolt shoots up your spine as a warm hand falls on your shoulders from behind as you attempt to blearily stare down these fetish predators. 

“What’s going on here?” Moira’s voice rattles through the uncomfortable tension.

You take a sip of your drink, never taking your eyes off Julie. “Nothing.” It’s laced with a threat. Mess with me, mess with Serena Osborne. With one last glare, you snatch your drink and slide off the stool. As you follow alongside Moira through the crush of sweaty dancing bodies, you snap at her too.

Hissing next to her ear, you make your ire known. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me like that again.”

She pretends not to hear you, or maybe she genuinely doesn’t.

By the time you make it upstairs to the other dancefloor, almost all of your irritation about the previous half-hour has evaporated. It’s darker, tighter, sweatier if that’s possible. But somehow it feels more comfortable; almost as if you’ll be less known here. That’s probably why Moira with her pupils the size of moons has chosen this, away from the flashy drag show and bright lights. 

There are a lot of people here, too many bodies writhing together to pop remixes and house music beats. At least one drink will be spilled on your nice top by the end of the night. That much is guaranteed. Insisting on more vodka shots, you put three back before Moira can even say a word. Desperate to shake off whatever the hell it was you’ve just gone through with your first shitty attempt since Serena to connect to another human being.

“Want a line?” she chatters at you instead, bouncing up and down in place and fidgeting with a cut-off plastic straw in her hand.

Part of you knows you shouldn’t, not with two children waiting at home. But Luke is there, the devil whispers into your ear. And besides, it's been so long since you’ve really let yourself go. What is tonight for if not that? Only one line, you promise yourself and the angel on your other shoulder shakes her head in reluctant defeat. Everyone knows it’s never only one.

  
  


It’s loud, it’s bright, it’s _nice_. A comfortable warmth spreads through your body as the alcohol and cocaine mix thoroughly. Fuck. It’s good coke. Really fucking great coke, actually. Or maybe it’s been so long that it feels good again. Then again, the fact that you are legitimately enjoying yourself on the dancefloor with your best friend, who also appears to be nothing but happy, might have something to do with the glow around you right now. It’s like old times. Much older times. Way before Gilead, before Luke, before kids and jobs and the worst of your broken hearts.

Every so often though, when the music breaks for a quick second, you feel lost as if you’re grasping at wind in a hurricane. Everything falls through your fingers, but a moment later the feeling is gone again. 

“Stay here,” Moira yells into your ear above the thumping music and constant din of voices. So much for not leaving you alone.

Doesn’t matter though, because you’re happy just to dance, to work out some of the constant bad energy that has accumulated in your bones for the last few years. There’s _so_ _much_ of it too. Every step has been heavy with lead and chains. Each time you lift a hand to touch a person or leaf through a book, your fingers are chapped and yet made of stone. 

Toxins leaking out from an old rusty oil barrel, punctured, that’s what dancing does. Yeah. Dancing does that. Being with Moira does that.

Sweat pools in the small of your back, and you hum at the feeling. It could be uncomfortable at most other times, but it matches the sheen of sweat on your forehead and chest. Bits of your hair are sticking to the side of your face and it’s becoming less and less important to push them away. This place is dark, and safe, and hidden, and who the fuck cares what you look like here. Who the fuck cares what anybody looks like here?

Hmm. 

Except you do care what _she_ looks like, in a much more pleasant way. Across the crowded dance floor, you catch her eye. No, it’s not Serena. As if that stuffy bitch would come near a gay club like this. She can’t even bring herself to say the goddamn word let alone surround herself with it. Chest heaving with the labourious task of breathing while fucking drunk and high as shit, you smile. Or at least you think that’s what it is. Or you hope. Moira once said never to smile on coke, you just look constipated. Fuck her. She’s not even here because she's abandoned you to stew in your own potentially terrible decisions, laden with chemically-imposed confidence, and the arousal of every nerve and every endocrine gland possible.

God, it’s so hot in here, and so busy. So good. In a few seconds, you’ve forgotten all about the woman across the dancefloor that you definitely should not flirt with in any way whatsoever because Moira gave you three rules, and she definitely breaks at least one. Considering you’ve not spoken to her ever, who knows about the other two.

Your heart races and skitters around, too fast, too fast yeah. Is it too fast? Maybe it is. No. It’s only the exercise, something you don’t get much of anymore. Oh fuck, you love this song.

Hopefully you’re dancing. It could be that you’re flailing but also, like, who fucking cares? You’ll fight them, you’ll fight them all. You’ve done it before and you can hold your own against Commanders and Wives, you can handle a few drunk gay boys. This coke is itching for a fight.

Something must have worked because hands slip out along your hips, reaching forward and tugging you back, flush against a very soft and enticing body. She smells good. Sweaty, yeah. Musky. Soapy too though. Like aloe and coconut shampoo. Fuck, she’s tall too. If you close your eyes, maybe…

 _No_. The angel is screaming at you now, throwing her fists against your eardrums, punching your skull to try to get any small semblance of sense back into your head.

She’s no match against the way this woman’s hips press into you, cradling your body, her hand sliding around to your stomach and sneaking up under your top. Just barely. Just a tease. Pressing your shoulders back in time to the rhythmic pump of the music, a shudder passes down your body at the feel of her breasts against you. Without warning, your own nipples harden in your bra and there’s a flush of heat between your legs, like being electrocuted. Your skin prickles everywhere, especially where you can feel her touch, and her breath.

Much better. This is much better than the straight Julie and her gross, bald boyfriend preying on lonely bisexuals for threesomes. This woman you would actually go home with, if she bothers to ask. 

Yes, the devil hisses as her mouth leaves a hot trail of saliva across your neck. Unbidden, you groan in response, tilting sideways, displaying your consent for more. Kicking any fears or concerns away, you realise if you pretend a little bit, this tall, blonde possibly war criminal but likely not, could almost be who you actually are craving. 

You miss her. You miss Serena, as majorly fucked up and wrong as that is _. It’s just sex_ , you chant in your head as this stranger nips at the curve of your jaw, moves up, then behind your ear to where you’re way too sensitive. A brief lapse and your knees almost buckle. You’d ask yourself how she knows this already but then you realise that most people know about that particular human weakness. Luke did, various college boyfriends did, it’s all over films and TV shows. It takes a great deal of irritation for you to swallow your narcissism and delusion at this point.

This isn’t Serena. It’s a tall, blonde woman with beautiful hands and a warm body, and you’re hungry. Fucking ravenous, really. That’s all there is to it. Nothing magical; there’s no fairytale here. She’s not here to sweep you off your feet and carry you away from this shithole to some other world where things are better, and Serena is a nice, caring, open person who has never held your wrists or smacked you onto the floor. 

Plus, it’s nice to be with someone who has all their fingers.

Her pinky teases the waistband of your leggings, plucking at the tight Lycra just enough to signal her intentions clearly as her hand splays wide over the bare skin of your abdomen under your shirt. Without thought, your back and shoulders arch against her.

“Want a bump?” she asks and her voice is more hoarse than you would have expected. You’re not the only one thoroughly enjoying this. 

“Sure,” you breathe out, not really thinking. There are already a bunch of chemicals pulsing through your veins, what is a little bit more? The fact you’ll have to stumble home with blown pupils into the apartment that shelters your two little girls doesn’t even pass through the most distant synapse.

Reluctantly, you turn to face her and miss the solid frame against your back already, but you’re packed in by other dancers on every side, tightly enough that the bouncers, if there even are any up here, wouldn’t be able to see you. She knocks a hefty pile of white powder onto the back of her hand where her thumb meets. In seconds, the bump is gone and she sniffles loudly, twitching her nose and grinning. Nope, this woman is _nothing_ like Serena. You follow her lead as she doles out a nice heap on your hand and you plug one nostril, snorting like a pro, like you do this every weekend. Moira would be so proud if she could see you now.

It could be blow. The drip doesn’t quite taste like it though. There’s no way back now, and you have no idea what you’ve taken into your body. Lucky perhaps is that with the USA falling, so did so many drug labs, so Canada is stuck with what it can grow naturally and produce in-country, except for the industry staples. (Somehow everyone still gets cocaine.) It means that a lot of the drugs that had been killing people prior to Gilead’s closed borders are rarer, and the chances of you having just imbibed some new research chemical are much lower. Not that those don’t still exist; there still is a thriving drug and addiction problem here in Canada. Maybe it’s the shitty judgement from the vodka and coke, but you’re not concerned about whatever you took.

She looks so good. Fuck, you can’t even bring yourself to ask her name. There’s no point. Your throat tightens as she gently licks the remaining powder residue off your hand, keeping her eyes glued to yours. Finally, you can tell what she looks like up close. Sure, she’s blonde, and taller than you, and slim, but her face is rounder, her cheeks a bit fuller, her eyes darker, and the blush creeping up her bare chest from her deep v-neck top is absolutely captivating. God, her tits are nice too.

She catches you staring with a smirk and suddenly your hands are no longer in your own motor control, grabbing at her waist, gluing your body right up against hers. How easy it is to ease her thigh between your legs. She doesn’t resist. Oh fuck, she doesn’t resist. In fact, her fingers are digging into the soft flesh of your hips, and a growl rumbles up from the very bottom of your chest. Yeah, she’s panting in your ear, so close, in between the way she’s sucking and kissing over your skin.

A buzzing begins in the back of your skull, spreading out to your head as it feels like every hair follicle is especially sensitive. That mere purr of pleasure fans out further, down your spine, into your heart. You can’t even explain it. Not now, not with so much booze and coke and whatever the fuck else is pumping through your blood. 

Kissing her, well, it’s awkward at first because you’re expecting someone else that you know by heart. Her lips pinch like a bee sting when your teeth hit and snag your lip with the clumsy desperation of somebody with something to prove. It’s the drugs, you assure yourself. You haven’t forgotten how to kiss anybody who isn’t Serena. You’re high on everything right now, and it fucking hurts. Drugs, liquor. They cause problems. So does being a pathetic fucking mess. She barely seems to react, commandeering the encounter over the potholes and it’s honestly a breath of fresh air not to constantly be the one wrangling control. You can give into it, and not have to worry that there’s something else under the surface that you’re wrestling with yourself about. She changes the angle and suddenly it’s better. Yes, please, take control.

It is very possible you’ll go home with her tonight. Luke’s words echo in your head, taking on the voice of that angel you’d banished off your shoulder a few lines ago. _Another marriage vow broken_. Potentially, and you’re not even nervous about that. _You deserve it_ , the cocaine screams at you from within the darker places inside. Her fingertips don’t even hesitate over the wedding band on your finger when she slides her hand over yours. 

Fingernails like dull fish hooks in your soft flesh, biting and pinching, make the blood rise across your cheeks. The bait is only your desire, like a lure glistening against shimmering dark blues and blacks. It’s fucking heavenly to ache this way again and be pulled along by something beyond your control.

Soon, you find your rhythm with her, and it’s yet another relief that you’re not completely incompetent or lost in Serena Waterford’s web.

Perhaps it’s because the longer you close your eyes, the more she feels exactly like Serena. The beat deepens, pounding against your skin and your hips move in time with it against her. Part dancing, part dry humping, part acting. The audience is unclear, because you don’t give a shit about anybody else here. It is like you’re dancing for a mirror, to prove something. To only yourself.

So dizzy.

Air.

Cold fucking air. It’s necessary. 

Stumbling into the bathroom is blinding, as if someone has pulled the curtains open after a long dark night. You blink, too many times probably, and squint at the line of stalls, painted all sorts of vibrant colours to draw you in. Why are the lights so glaring? Everything is bright and you have no memory of even leaving the dance floor. After avoiding the mirror entirely, the metal door swings back, thumping against the cubicle wall and you wince again; too violent, you scold yourself. Too eager. You sense her behind you rather than know for sure, because at this point, considering the way your vision swims with tracers and wavy, moving patterns against every background, and the way your ears ring, you’re not entirely certain what is and what isn’t real anymore. Is she even real?

She feels real. And smells, and sounds real. She tastes real. God, how much you _itch_ for her taste. It’s eating your skin from the inside out, and your short nails scratch absently against your own wrists, then at the bend of your elbow where a needle should be, to ease the shriek of your blood. You mark your own forearm with streaks of red welts from scraping at yourself. It’s very, very itchy, and the buzzing in the back of your head just keeps growing louder. Almost unbearably so. So you shake your head so forcefully that you almost spin yourself off-balance. You must look proper fucked up.

But, at least everyone else here does too.

Is this what you're reduced to without a warm body to cushion your various falls? No Luke, no Nick, no Serena. This is what you’re like when you have no one left to save.

That’s okay. The stranger will do for now.

The stalls are plenty big enough for you and her to fit snugly, and finally, under the hard fluorescent glow of tube lighting, you can study her more clearly. There’s no haze, no looming shadows to cover it up, and she can see all your black eyeliner and mascara smeared across your face from sweat, the hair sticking in clumps to your forehead, the frenzy in your blown pupils. Hers are the same; you can’t even tell what colour her eyes should be. Maybe grey, maybe brown. It doesn’t even fucking matter.

Her eyes are glazed, like she doesn’t actually see you, which is fine really, because you don’t even know if you exist anymore. She’s seeing someone else, a different June, somebody who isn’t any of the things you are. It’s better if she can’t see. The darkness of unknowing another person is a particular type of freedom. She’s better without a name, or story, or face. 

This is probably the June your mother warned you about: untethered and uncaring. Perhaps she would have preferred the June that shacks up with Serena even, because at least that June had rules, had dreams, had something worth saving. Whatever grotesque version of yourself this stranger sees has no morals, no standards, no deeper meaning. You’re a discarded shell on the beach that the crab outgrew. Past your use.

The stranger shifts, and you blink quickly, pushing out the vision of Serena that you see instead. 

Leaning forward, she slowly kisses you as your knees tremble and you grab at the toilet paper dispenser to keep yourself upright. Relying on her feels too intimate, and too needy. How dare you clasp your hands against her body for support. And especially not as she kisses you like _this_. This is not like on the dancefloor with a violent mashing of lips, trails of saliva, all sloppy and mindless fever. When she pulls back to blearily squint at your reaction, your tongue darts out across your lips like a viper. 

The turquoise of her top reflects against her white skin, all too familiar in its chilling echo of somebody else and some other time. This is a sickness, you’re certain now. Your addiction has become chronic and unstoppable and you’re too far gone for rehab. The bass from the music outside thunders in the small space as you hear the coming and going of other bathroom patrons. The occasional flush of a toilet doesn’t exactly set the mood like you’d ideally want. The buzzing is so loud, your skin fizzles as if it’s too close to an undisclosed danger. The image of her face pulsates and warps with some influence of all the chemicals in your system. It’s not Serena you see but somebody else, someone who is not a stranger but also not your wife: a ghost of something that has been once, perhaps, in some alternate reality.

There is only one solution to this surrealist nightmare that your mind seems intent on dragging your through in a nightclub toilet. You grab, at skin and at fabric, with a strength half-borne from fear really. She consents easily and falls against you—maybe too easily for your liking because you’re accustomed to things being so much more difficult. With the creak of metal under your combined weight, the world feels off-kilter when you experience it this way. 

A god, or maybe a fairy godmother, seems to have heard your concern because as her mouth travels across your neck, not biting exactly, but snapping just enough to make your blood rise again. But there’s an ebb every other breath when you find your mind seized with panic, before surrendering again to the sensations on your skin. There’s a blockage, something holding you back from entirely giving in despite your determined attempt to forget your actual life for merely an hour or so. Your greedy hands twist into her blonde hair and your eyes squeeze shut.

“God, Serena,” you gasp, as the woman laps at the sensitive skin over your exposed cleavage and her hand cups you firmly between your legs with a promise. You want her mouth elsewhere immediately.

Moira isn’t wrong: the name is a curse. It summons a dense darkness that feels impossible to fight against. Like quicksand. Like death.

Immediately, she stalls and pulls away as if it actually bothers her that you called another woman’s name. Why should it matter who she is and who she isn’t? This has got to be some form of inherent loneliness snowballing into a selfish exercise in gratification, not a sloppy attempt at love and intimacy. You have Luke for that. You wouldn’t seek that in a place like this. There’s no future for you in Plato’s cave, or maybe outside it. (That part hasn’t been made clear yet.)

When your eyes open, blinded momentarily by the stark greenish lights, you see Serena clearly in front of you. With another blink, or two, and squinting against the forces of your mind attempting to warp reality, the fog clears and you see an unfamiliar woman, tangled blonde hair, blue shirt, and smeared mascara staring back at you, as accusingly as possible considering both of your inabilities to actually form proper emotion in the strung out state you’re in.

The silence swells as she regards you, indifferently. Perhaps her eyes are meant to relay some type of emotion, but they’re almost dead. If anything, she looks startled, a little anxious. 

Nothing makes any fucking sense right now.

Escape is the only option. Run away, like always, you tell yourself. Except your legs refuse to move. Have the drugs paralysed you? Shit—fuck, are you about to land smack in the middle of a k-hole in some shitty club toilet stall?

“June?”

Oh, thank God once again for Moira. You can hear at least, and this woman is still staring blankly at you, or maybe she only seems blank. Fuck, you can’t fucking tell anymore what the fuck is happening.

“Moira!” Okay, your voice works. And yes, okay, the stranger rolls her eyes—that’s something different. Practically pushing you out of the way, she yanks open the cubicle door and rushes away. Moira’s there though, just as fucking weird looking as everyone else but you trust her. It’s Moira. She’s safe. 

All you want is Moira.

Reaching out her hand, she takes one look at you and knows exactly what you’re feeling. Her palm is so warm, her fingers are so strong. She is so strong. “Moira,” you whine as the world in your vision shifts dangerous to one side then swings back to the other like you’re on some fucked up ocean cruise. “Why can’t we be in love instead?” 

She places a plastic bottle of cold water in your hands and nods for you to drink, a half-smile dancing across her face. “I don’t know. It would make shit a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”

Nodding, you gulp down half the bottle, reveling in the feeling down your throat. It’s not too stuffy any longer and the space seems bigger. Still all messed up, and your vision is blurred and your balance is teetering, but safer now. Things are evening out, a little. “I do love you, you know,” you state with absolute sincerity for a drunk, strung out moron and so far it's the closest you've come to a genuine apology for how difficult you've been these past weeks. 

“I love you too, you shithead.”

“Just not _that_ way.” It seems like an important clarification for you to make for some reason, even if it really isn’t.

She merely snorts in response. “Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not looking at you and seeing a wifey either.” It goes without saying, really. But goddammit, why not? It really would have made everything so much better. “I’m seeing a shit-faced idiot who can’t even follow one simple rule.”

You take another huge helping of water to refresh whatever senses are left in your swirling head. “What?” How dare she? Wait, what is she even talking about. Fuck her.

“No blondes,” she smirks, and you want to pound your head into the nearest concrete wall. It would probably hurt less. Instead of a mature response, you toss the near-empty bottle at her instead, pouting as immaturely as you possibly can as some other woman attempts to squeeze past you to use the toilet. 

Ignoring your juvenile, drag-addled aimless tantrum, she shakes her head and arches an eyebrow. “Okay, let’s go home. You’re ridiculous.”

As you follow her out, suddenly without any smart-assed reply, you realise you don’t understand what that word means anymore. Pausing at the door, you grip onto it as if there’s an earthquake. “Moira.” Your voice has taken on a fierce whisper. “Where is home?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, looping an arm through yours and pulling you back into the dark corridor with the loud music and sweaty bodies.

* * *

Home is the Other House, as it turns out. After insisting multiple times that you should go to Luke’s instead, she rather artfully manages to manipulate you into understanding that having Hannah and Nicole seeing their Mommy fucked up on God knows what drugs probably isn’t the most healthy thing in the world. Luke is fine from what you can blearily make out from the phone screen swimming in front of your face. He texted you as much and said he’d call you in the morning when you’re sober again. Part of you never wants to be sober again though so fuck him.

There are too many things happening and you want all the feelings to just stop already. Moira should know better than to bring you back home, because it all is Serena _everywhere_ and you’re in no state to handle that reality.

Maybe she doesn’t care because she yanks off your shoes, pulls off your jacket, and places a huge glass of water on the nightstand. In your room. In Serena’s room, actually. In the room that you used to share with Serena. That white rose is still hanging there above the mirror and the sheets still smell like her. After a struggle, she wrestles you out of your leggings, top, and sweat-soaked underwear (it’s all so _gross_ ) and into some assorted clothes that come from the dresser drawer. You’re too fucking dizzy to care how ungracefully you flop around when Moira struggles with irritation as she changes you like a toddler. She’s seen you worse off than this in college, surely. Frankly, you’re a little shocked she didn’t toss you in a cold shower, clothes and all like she had back then. Maybe they’re Serena’s pajamas or maybe they’re your leftovers. The way the long sleeves pool and bunch around your wrist, it’s pretty obvious whose pajamas you’re in, all the while something else gnaws at your chest about how much you missed casually sharing her clothes. At least they’re clean, so it’s only the scent of laundry detergent that tickles your nose.

When Moira pulls the blankets up to your chin and you mumble a sincere apology to your best friend for _everything_ , you can’t decide whether you want to punch her or hug her because all night you’d simply wanted to feel _this_ , even though you had no idea what it was then. Turning your head, you are surely smearing leftover makeup all over the pillow, but Serena was here, and it makes you feel so much better as you burrow into the familiar scent.

Even though it really shouldn’t.

Drugs will do that, you suppose. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To make you feel things you wouldn’t otherwise. It’s not until Moira closes the door, leaving you alone in the room, that out of nowhere, you begin to cry.

Christ, you’re pathetic.

* * *

Never again, you state with absolute certainty the next morning, first to the horrifying reflection of yourself in the bathroom mirror, and then to Moira and Erin in the kitchen. The smell of coffee is making your stomach turn, and you nearly retch. The idea of food is even worse, but nothing can compete with the cracking headache that is threatening to actually split your skull into two pieces. Taking a hesitant sip of your black tea, you swallow and wince at the feeling. Sure, you've been hungover a few mornings since coming to Canada, but nothing like this. Whatever the hell you took last night isn’t playing nice now and the whole, entire world seems like it’s out to get you.

Erin smiles blandly, crunching on a piece of toast. “You look terrible,” she hums. “Rough night?”

Only groaning helps. More drugs too, maybe that also would be a solution. Something to knock you the fuck out for a day to recover. Next to you, Moira smacks a cup down on the table, loudly, on purpose and, yes, it’s official, you are going to kill her—as soon as you can move without wanting to throw up or trip over the much too long sweatpants. She is grinning at you like it’s the funniest thing she’s seen in a long time.

“You deserve it, you know.” She is so goddamn smug for someone who was also snorting God knows what up her nose last night. “I warned you.”

Another groan is all you can muster for a long minute. “Warned me? As if.”

“I said no blondes. And what did you do? Find the first tall blonde you could and swallow whatever evil shit she had to offer.” She sits back in her chair, lips curved in pleasure. “Sounds exactly like you, huh? Next time try listening to me.”

“Ugh.” You have no argument. There isn’t one, not really. If you had just danced and kept your hands to yourself, and pretended the rest of the world there didn’t exist, maybe you would merely be hungover, instead whatever Hell this is. And probably, you wouldn’t have slept in Serena’s bed on top of everything else. “Where is Serena anyway?”

It’s very rare for silence with Moira to feel awkward, but it suddenly does now and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. Both she and Erin stare at you as if there’s something very wrong with you. Well, there is, obviously, but not _that_ bad, surely. 

“Hospital. Remember?” Moira narrows her eyes. “What _did_ you take last night? You’re fucked.”

Oh, right. The hospital. The reason why Nicole is with Luke and you now. Forever. 

She slides a glass of water towards you with one finger, as if she’s dealing with an unpredictable, feral dog. Maybe with good reason. “Why don’t you take this back upstairs, crawl into your bed, and not come out until you’re not so brain damaged anymore?”

She doesn’t appear to notice what she’s said, but you do, and it makes you want to vomit all over again. Your bed. Is it? It was. It was yours before it was hers. It was both of yours before it was hers. It was bad enough waking up in such a familiar place this morning, but it is worse to remember how good it felt—more than anything else has in weeks—to nestle into those soft sheets when you were at your lowest last night. You hate it; you resent your mind and more your body. Both are filthy traitors as all the events of last night proved in glaring technicolor.

When you manage to slowly climb back upstairs and clamber onto Serena’s bed, the first thing you do is pick up your phone. 24% battery left but it should be enough to say what you need to. Last night’s mascara is still wiped in black streaks across the pillow case so you flip it over, lie down, and try to ignore the objects in your periphery. All the books, and the rose, and various pieces you left when you moved out so suddenly. Staring at the the ceiling above doesn’t help though because it reminds you of when you came upstairs to see Serena standing on a box, balanced shakily on the mattress as she attempted to place the stupid glow-in-the-dark stickers that are still up there. She’s not Luke, and doesn’t really seem to know—or care—about astronomy. Instead, you remember Hannah’s laughter as Serena wobbled there, grinning, putting them wherever your daughter directed until the whole mess made a heart out of stars, and you remember swallowing thick as you considered how she was trying to steal that memory of Luke from you and own it as hers instead. When you'd told her about that in her stupid nursery, you'd never expected it to be used against you.

In the daylight, they’re just some greenish-yellow dots. Ugly, really. Tacky. You hate everything about this room now.

Your fingers scroll through your contacts, and then dial. Your new therapist had better answer her phone.

Even though you leave out the events of the previous night, her advice is to leave immediately and go back to Luke’s. Not to listen to Moira because although she may love you, it’s not healthy to dwell in the past like this. Reluctantly, you pull yourself out of bed, and strip off the makeshift PJs Moira scavenged for you and get back into your sweaty, dirty club clothes, feeling much less refreshed than you even did when you were puking this morning. Nobody enjoys this part of the morning after, and after all this hassle, you didn’t even get laid. Absolutely nothing feels any better and the whole exercise seems like a massive waste of time, except for the getting wasted with your best friend part.

As you look around, there’s the book. Serena’s stupid fucking international apology farce that you have yet to read. _For my wife, June_. The words are already screeching at you from behind the blood red cover, taunting, and for a long time you stare down at it as your blood pumps too hard in your ears.

Then at the last second with a rather large gulp of breath, just as you're about to run from the bedroom, you grab it and shove it into your bag.


	9. undertones of nausea

No. It’s not the burn of disappointment you feel when Serena isn’t at Nicole’s playgroup that afternoon as you fight off your hangover and it’s filthy lover, the drug cocktail comedown. Relief is more like it, but the way other Montessori parents are staring at you makes you self-conscious. For some reason, this is the moment you miss her the most out of all the days you’ve been apart. Before, she’d be next to you and the stares and whispers wouldn’t quite bother you the same way. You could feel them float over you, like there was a shield of some sort around you. In fact, she’d probably make a spectacle of herself for some inane reason and all the stares and glares would be laser-focused on her. Maybe that was just Serena and her belligerently aloof response to constant attack. It acted as an umbrella for you as well. 

Nicole comes clumsily bounding across the room as you enter, her feet pounding alongside the unbearable throbbing in your skull, and immediately looks around for Serena too. Even now, she still doesn’t understand what’s going on.

When you’re helping her climb into her place in the backseat of the car, she squeals and reaches for the crumpled magazine on the floor. “Mama!” She triumphantly holds the old issue of _The Advocate_ up for you to see as if you’re not the person who bought the damn thing in the first place. Luke must have tossed it back there when he found it the next morning.

“Yes, that’s Mama,” you mumble, trying not to stare at the cover in Nicole’s chubby toddler hands. She is beaming ear to ear at her discovery. You attempt to ignore the pangs in your chest too as you wrestle her into her carseat and buckle her in. “You hang onto that. Lots of Mama in there.”

God, you resent that woman. Lucy, your therapist—who insists you call her Luce for short in a kooky attempt at bonding—has been working hard to wrangle your stressors out from the mire of the rest of your life, telling you your kids will eventually catch on. It’s better to deal with things as soon as they arise. And this whole Serena business has festered far too long, she claims, but therapy isn’t helping at all. At first, yes, but now, not so much. Back then, you’d managed to have hours upon hours where she barely factored into your thoughts but suddenly, in the past few days, she’s all you can think about. Every five _fucking_ minutes. You're obsessed. And each incidence, it physically seems to slice at you until you’re sucking in sharp breaths or feeling your skin break out in a clammy sweat. You can’t even pick your daughter up from the playgroup without the incessant reminder of everything that is missing. Every single time it happens, you feel that resurgence of confusion and shame at yourself that had been so pervasive before, but now it’s tampered by something else. Something thick, stringy. It tastes bitter like regret on the back of your tongue.

It smells heady and warm, like the soft skin of the curve of her neck first thing in the morning when you’d curl up behind her. You can hear the sound of her gnawing on her pen next to you, and feel the way she would tenderly brush your hair off your face in the middle of the night when you’d wake up from a nightmare. Nightmares that she inspired. All your senses burst into flame at the simple thought of her, even now and there is an astringent type of shame that pricks at the corners of your eyes because of it. 

Yet you hang on tightly to your loathing and suffering, like a medal around your neck for some great triumph, not understanding that its dead weight is a noose dragging you under the water. Martyrdom seems so appealing in the canons of saints: to thirst, to bleed, to die with such conviction for another force beyond the simple comprehension of others. Maybe in Gilead you would have chosen that in order to save Hannah. But, here, you don’t understand what you’re dying for, or why you’ve cut yourself open in this way, because all you want is her and all you despise is also her. So, your grief is only with yourself; not a man in Heaven, not the people below. 

Anyway, you don’t even believe in saints and sinners anymore. Gilead saw to that. All anybody has ever been are sad souls searching for a sliver of meaning in a universe of none.

Maybe that’s your problem too, and forcing meaning into this existential nightmare of a relationship has been the root of every thing that’s gone awry. Maybe what you feel is not meant to be understood at all, and all those boxes of memory you’d spilled all over the rotten floorboards of your mind were better left alone. Maybe it’s something better left to the gods and demons to sort out because you’ve only got the free therapy package, and that doesn’t come with the Avicennist philosophical enlightenment add-on.

Your daughter squeals again as her sticky little hands grasp at the spread about Serena, with photos of your wife smeared all over the glossy pages. Meanwhile, and despite the strangling weight pulling on your neck, you can’t shake the visceral memories of her skin.

You decide to make an appointment to cut your hair, to start fresh. Plucking a strand from your ponytail, it glistens, blonde in the sunlight. Perhaps if you squint hard enough, you can see it too: years of memories embedded like DNA in every strand. The same story, told a million times over, living every day as part of you. You carry each tree ring with you, sometimes tying them up and out of the way, sometimes letting them down to surround you with their softness. Each snapshot of pain, or joy, or simple indifference. All recorded to play back at a later time in some ancient translation that humans have yet to decode, only feel. But, in honesty, more often it is just the loss—the relief—that is felt when the hair falls, as ungracefully as it was formed, onto the shiny salon floor.

A lot of irrational bunk, your mother would have claimed. Well, of course a doctor would say that. She’d studied hair strands under the microscope in med school, probably. There’s no mystery or magic left in her world.

Well, you haven’t lost that, and you need to be cut loose.

* * *

Luce won’t say it, and she is doing her best to hide it, but maybe she isn’t the greatest therapist because you can sense her frustration and irritation every time you open your mouth and something about Serena slips out. Except this time. After complimenting your new short, brown hair (another one of her suggestions to "reimagine yourself"), this is the time she finally sighs in relief because you’ve just been to the lawyer’s and in your hand are your final divorce papers. The only step left is to get Serena to sign them, everywhere the lawyer put those little yellow stickers. 

Which means seeing her.

Which also means you’re on a completely new plane of anxiety today.

She said, back when this breakup began that she wouldn’t fight you, that she’d give you whatever you want. Full custody of Nicole may not have been in her mind at the time, however, and that particular demand may not go over well. In truth, she may not even want to give you this divorce. It’s not like that is something you’d ever discussed with her and generally launching it on an unsuspecting person doesn’t end well. Then again, how could she be really that surprised? You’re separated now, and surely she can’t expect you to live your life bound to someone who helped with your rape. Courts don’t tend to favour those sorts of people in divorce cases.

The package feels exceptionally heavy in your hands as you tap it against the arm of Luce’s chair.

She claims you’re being very brave in taking an important step for your own healing. That’s easy for her to say because you haven’t told her everything about that Thursday night at the club, about everything you felt and saw and _needed,_ both from the stranger and later at the Other House wrapped in Serena's blankets. She’s not entirely wrong either, however. You have managed, during the course of these sessions, to unpack things, and repack others. Everything seems slightly more manageable these days. Imagine that. And it’s exactly why you’re trusting her with this advice. 

A clean break. A fresh start. A life without _her_.

Most people would likely rejoice. Sing songs, toast champagne, gorge themselves on sweet delicacies, hug, laugh, cry tears of joy. _Ding dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch!_

As you stumble over how that feels, you’re reminded of every reason you have to want to scream it to the moon how happy you are now. Listing all the negatives is important; it’s all you have. The thing about addiction is of course it feels good every time you get a hit. Every time you see her in a magazine, or crawl into her bed and it smells a bit like her, or see a similar woman when you’re fucked out of your head at a club. When you touch her, or kiss her, or make her come. That’s all part of the disease, because the whole problem is how that behaviour, and that obsession, is going to eventually break you into pieces and ruin your life.

It’s your addiction that tells you, _Well, maybe it’s worth it._

So, to quiet that, you stare at the divorce papers and recite all the crimes she’s done.

Then, you start thinking about all the horrible shit you did. Like killing a man. Particicutions and salvagings weren’t some harmless pastime like swatting at a pinata during a friend's birthday party. Would you, _this June_ , ever do that? No. That was another June. That was Offred. That was Ofpaul. Your addiction asks you why can’t there also be a Serena then, and a different— _real_ one now? There is a difference, probably. It’s hard to see where the line is at this time of day. At any time of day.

Luce warns you to go home and throw the book you stole away as well. You already know what your section says, and Moira’s, and there will be a time in the far future to read the rest but it’s not now.

Now is withdrawal.

* * *

Of course, June Osborne is not a very good listener. It really doesn’t matter which June you are, they’re all like that, and usually, the advice you should be listening to is good. This time is no exception because the second you decide to forego rational guidance, you know what a mistake it is that you’ve made. 

There is little point pretending that your interest is in anything but her chapter. It’s the mystery; it’s what she hid from you after tossing that useless woe-is-me tale aside on your suggestion. It’s exactly the chapter of the book, out of all of them, that you’ve been effectively banned from reading by Luce—as if banning books wasn’t the sort of thing Gilead did right away itself.

The spine still cracks; Serena obviously hasn’t read it either. It has likely sat untouched on the bookshelf since she put it there, days before that final argument.

No, you won’t allow your eyes to land on the dedication again. Not today. Your nerves already tremble like dried and dying leaves in autumn. The last thing you need is for that wind to give the branch a really good shake.

Instead, the table of contents directs you to the end of the book and you remember how she wanted to give you the final chapter but the editor at the publishing house refused, over and over. After all, it’s not as if you’re a trained editor yourself or anything. But perhaps your experience with college introductory kinesiology textbooks isn’t as relevant to memoirs from war victims as you imagine it to be. Of course, you received a paycheck for the assistance you gave Serena, and for your own chapter, but they still didn’t trust you. Nothing in publishing has really changed, it seems.

Same bullshit, different country.

* * *

Yes, it was a mistake. You should have listened to Luce. And Moira, and Luke, and every little voice that told you not to do this to yourself.

For half an hour, you don’t move except for the occasional flip of a page. The world outside the black Bembo typeface in front of you doesn’t exist. Paralysed between words and thoughts, you can’t recall the last time you took a breath because suddenly you cease to be alive, except in the way you’re described by her.

The first time she attempted to write about what had happened, it came out as a jumble of mixed metaphors and sloppy romanticism, all bookended with facts and stunted emotions. It had angered you then, that she would open herself up like that to anybody, and worse that she dragged you with her. More than anything, maybe, it was the shame that there were connections, tight, pinching ones between you two, and the whole world was suddenly privy to it all. She hadn’t used your name then, but everyone had known. When it was published online, the entire household was made aware because anybody who knew anything about Serena Joy Waterford after Gilead, knew about you too. That’s when you had flown into a rage, showed up at her door, and everything had crumbled once more.

This time it’s polished, but somehow, it sounds even more intimate, more like the Serena that casually plays with your hair when you’re relaxing on the sofa watching TV. It’s the voice of the same Serena that whimpers your name in the dark, both in ecstasy and nightmares. It’s genuine and terrifying.

She’s left out all the fanciful allegories, the politics, the self-flagellating pity, and stopped playing at being clever. That’s exactly how it feels, you realise: she’s not hiding behind anything when she speaks through these pages anymore.

This is one simple thing: a love story, told by somebody who shouldn’t have one. It’s a love story from the one woman who nobody wants to get one. Many of the chapters in the book are heartbreaking tales of loss and suffering, but also resilience in the face of it all, because after everything, it’s written by survivors. Serena’s part seems to lose track of the tone. Yes, it’s about survival against the odds, it is full of suffering the same as the others, but it is in many ways, more gentle, more hopeful, more defiant in its rejection of everything Gilead is. It is everything Gilead isn’t and it rejects every tenet of holiness and love that Gilead claims, showing instead what that is in reality. There is nothing in Gilead that isn’t a cheap facsimile, or an appropriation, a mutation of what Serena speaks of here. She should know, she helped build it.

And the way she talks about you... 

Before, in that haze of anger and despair, you’d thought the dedication was some sort of performance for Fred and his fellows in Gilead. Most of the chapter is about you, in various degrees, about all the ways you changed her in little and big ways. You had no idea about the extent of it, especially not when she says it started for her, and that was well before Nicole. 

Suddenly, both the dedication and the photo at the back start to come together. This isn’t a trick. This is the closest Serena has ever come to telling the truth. Of course, it made sense to have suspicions about her motives because nothing in Gilead was without something else lurking beneath the surface. Even your first encounter was layered with strategy. Maybe. Well, clearly now you know to her it wasn’t. But as if you would have even contemplated it had it not been for very specific circumstances.

The biggest problem with the chapter is how beautiful it is. In every way you can imagine.

It’s nothing like that previous draft. While it is for you, of course, it is for once something not meant for Gilead at all. Maybe that’s what throws you off the most because everything she has ever written and done has been about getting back at Fred, and Gilead, and about politics. Even if it wasn’t the main goal, it was always a goal.

This is nothing but a love story from one woman to another. If your children read nothing else from Serena’s hand, you hope they read this.

Pressure builds in your lungs, spreading through your chest and up your shoulders. Everything is tense with the knowledge that this piece of writing is different. When you read the final line, it breaks what’s left of your heart.

_When I die, I want my last thought to be: "I got to love her."_

No, you think, you definitely should not have read this. It’s too much to be loved like this, in this strange distant way that never feels quite real even when she’s around. It crushes down on your nerves yet manages to close the lid on all sorts of boxes that should have never been opened in the first place.

The divorce papers are sitting in your purse on the floor. More than ever, you’re certain you need to serve them to her. This is simply unsustainable. She is going to destroy you if you let her. With a new determination, you slam the book closed and vow not to let her slip the noose this time. If you don’t kill this first, it’ll kill you.

* * *

The day is particularly warm, as the weather channel likes to say, “above seasonal for this time of year”, for the fifth day in a row. It’s funny because you weren’t aware that seasonal weather even followed any sort of pattern any longer. It seems to come when it wants, and leave without reason. March is really the shittiest month, and even with these spring temperatures and the ice melting from rooftops, it feels colder than normal. Life is just generally more chilly. Skies around are grey, dark with threatening rain, or snow, it is impossible to tell and even meteorologists don’t want to hazard a guess. 

Nicole and Hannah are bickering in their bedroom, and it’s loud enough that you can hear it from the living room. Something about everyone being cooped up in this stupid small apartment has led to tensions that you weren’t aware could even exist. You never had siblings, Luke never did, Hannah never did either, not like this being trapped in this small apartment full of stress. It's new territory for everyone.

Nipping tension in the bud hasn’t exactly helped because it’s only been two weeks since Nicole moved in for good, and she and Hannah seem about ready to kill each other already. Sixteen days since Serena called Luke instead of you in some bizarre twist. And five days since you last got jealous about that. Again. Yeah, thanks, Luce, for that little nugget to fuck up your day. Every day is a new exercise to come to grips with your history with Serena. It’s meant to heal, or so you’re told. Honestly, it’s hard to tell if it’s working at all, because for better or worse, she still seems to be the only thing you’re capable of thinking about, in any mood: bad, good, or indifferent.

The shrill ring of the phone startles you from your idle contemplation of the scrolling news band on the TV. But again it’s not for you; it’s for Luke of course. He’s so busy, and he has so many friends. Some of them are women, you can tell from the way his voice changes. You’d recognise that flirt in his tone any day. Perhaps that’s the real reason he pushed you away the other night. Nothing he’s saying really matters to you as it’s all a series of noncommittal acknowledgements and grunts.

As he does so, he wanders into your line of sight, blocking the TV from you, as if you don’t even exist. And then he ends the call.

Luke's eyes are soft, concerned as you meet his gaze. He holds up the phone as if just the sight of it alone has a message for you. "That was Moira. Serena's finally gone into labour."

For a long moment, you stare around him at the TV, unblinking, trying not to let the words land on you. You can't avoid them forever, so you shrug. "Okay."

Luke moves over to you. There's a whiff of something old and musty as the cushions billow out with his weight. Secondhand furniture always seems to have that same aged smell. "Do you want a ride to the hospital?" 

There's a tone in his voice that grates against your eardrums. It bangs too loudly, abruptly like a child beating a cardboard box with a stick. You hate it, the concern, the judgement. _Fucking Luke_. 

"No. Why?"

" _June_." He looks you over carefully, taking in every flicker and fidget in your body. In return, you raise an eyebrow, a challenge. A scolding. "She's in labour, and she's your wife."

"You know that's not real, right?" You’ve finally snapped. Sick of that line, sick of being called her wife, sick of the entire pantomime. How cruel would it be to hand her divorce papers the day her baby is born? You suppose you could find out. It can’t be any worse than everything she has done to you over the years.

It's his turn to shrug as he leans back into the pillows, staring so damn calmly at you. "Looks pretty real to me." Again, there's that smug tone of this, like he's so much better than you. More well adjusted. A bigger person. As if he doesn't fucking hate every living inch of Serena Joy Waterford. _Wait_.

Serena Osborne.

_Ugh._

"It wasn't," you insist, more adamantly. Why does he keep speaking as if your relationship is still continuing? To you, it’s something that is in the past yet to him, he sees it as happening right now. "She didn't want Waterford to get his hands on the baby, if something happened to her."

Briefly, there's silence, and then you hear the familiar twinkle of his disbelieving laugh. "That's pretty extreme. Just for a hypothetical scenario." There's nothing to say back to him, because, yes, yes it is a pretty extreme thing for something that was only make-believe in Serena's hormonally-warped brain. "Call Moira back at least. Please."

"Fine!" You grab for your phone like a petulant child, noticing all the missed calls from Moira as it had sat on silent mode. Not a single one from Serena. "That is all I'm doing."

His warmth leaves with him as he rises from the sofa. "While you do that, I'll call you a taxi."

"Luke!" you yell, a little louder than intended, sounding more like Hannah than an adult. 

"June," he counters, at a much more measured volume but obviously losing patience with you. "You're going to thank me."

As the phone against your ear begins to ring through to Moira's number, you can feel the hot prick of tears in the corner of your eyes. This man, this _beautiful_ man you have done nothing but hurt, is still looking out for you. And this isn't only about Hannah, because she's not here in this room and there is no performance. It's _you_. With some guilt, you realise it might always be just you for him. 

"What took you so long, bitch? Your damn wife is in surgery now, which is good only because I'm sick of listening to her."

You barely get out the first syllable of her name before she cuts you off. "You'd better get yourself here ASAP because I can't babysit her crazy ass anymore."

"Okay." It comes out as a chastised mumble, and you tell yourself you’re simply doing this to relieve Moira’s sense of womanly obligation. And then there’s Luke, smirking at you like he’s won a fucking prize, and you grab for your coat and purse. Your hard glare should be enough but you accessorise it with veiled and half-hearted contempt. "Don't you start too.”

* * *

Something about hospitals has always made you feel safe. Most people feel uncomfortable, out of place, in a type of nervous limbo walking the clean, hard corridors with the smell of disinfectant and illness in the air. Maybe it's thanks to your mother that her career made you appreciate the sanctuary that these places provide. Maybe it's because in Gilead, hospitals were the only place you could truly rest, where it looked like the America from before. There were escapes there. Here, it's like a church of science. This is where the prayers should be sent, not to some man in the sky anymore.

Your shoes echo down the hallway, past the eerie beeping of machines behind closed doors and the gentle rustle of a night nurse at her station. 

_Creepy_ , Luke had said to you when Hannah was born and he came back from Subway down the road. It was open until 2 AM, everyday, and nothing made you more irritable than hospital food. Your mother had other opinions about hospitals of course, very loud ones. Neither hers nor Luke's matter to you, ever.

It's peaceful. Quiet. Orderly and serene. You can walk around like you own the whole place, and, technically, here in Canada you do. Everyone does.

After years of chasing your mother around for attention, you seem to have a sixth sense for the layout of any hospital. They're not really that complicated to navigate. Plus, Moira already gave you pretty thorough directions, just so you don't have the excuse that you couldn't find it.

The duty nurses are elsewhere and it's easy to make it onto the surgical obstetrics ward after signing in, with the security guard clearly both recognising and expecting you. 719. That's the room. Visiting hours are over, but you're not just visiting. The overnight bag on your shoulder feels like a hundred pounds, or maybe that’s only the divorce papers that you have brought with you, because there is no time like the present. Perhaps she’ll be so overwhelmed by new motherhood she’ll sign without looking, without even caring.

She's asleep, thankfully. It may be your duty to be here but it's not your desire to speak with her. That can wait. Even so, you notice the flip of your heartbeat seeing her there and the way something hot slides under your skin immediately, filling your eyes momentarily with tears. Then you swallow and that pathetic relief of seeing her again fades. It allows you to look around the dark space. The plastic baby bassinet is next to her, a tiny white bundle, moving slightly with every breath. It's her baby. Her son. 

He's not yours, not _really_. But even so, you dump your bag on the floor, strip out of your winter coat, and move towards the baby who looks alert and healthy, you note with some surprise considering how difficult the pregnancy. His tiny hands are reaching blindly, a mouse-like gurgle erupts. He’s awake. Without a second thought, instinct overwhelms you and you reach in, carefully and tenderly feeling the warm weight in your arms. 

There was that movie, the Grinch one. Right now, suddenly, with the baby in your arms, you feel like that nasty green creature when his heart grows so large it breaks its cage open. It may be almost dark but you can see him perfectly. His fingers wrap around one of yours, and exactly like both times before, your smile breaks out and your voice comes out soft, offering hushed sounds of soothing. A little Osborne boy. 

"He's beautiful, isn't he?"

Her voice is groggy, a little hesitant though, and for the first time in over three weeks, you meet her eyes as her gaze sweeps back and forth, all over your face and hair and hands, trying to make sense of this new looking you. _Fuck_. There goes your stomach, doing that thing it does when she’s around you.

"He’s perfect, Serena." 

She shifts, wincing. "I didn't think you'd come."

Despite everything, that really stings. Not because it's hurtful or meant to be any way, but because you hadn't planned on it and she knows. Not until Moira and Luke forced you into it. Now, you can't imagine ever not being here for this. Most of all, you’re feeling guilty for the rest. Labour isn't an everyday occurrence, even if you do hate her. 

"Of course I came." You gaze down at the baby in your arms, and a twitch of a smile pulls at your lips. _Your son_. "Just a little late, that's all." 

It took a little longer than you’d planned to figure out which memory boxes to throw away completely, and which to seal up and stow in the dark corners. But suddenly you're all packed now, you realise. Luke knew that before you did, and here you are, gazing down at a fresh start.

Placing the baby gently back into the bassinet, you watch Serena staring at her child. Then she looks up at you, pleading but says nothing. It hurts like a knife wound and there are fists clenching and tugging at your heart each second you gaze at her like this. God, it hurts. It hurts to realise that it’s her fingers digging into your chest; it’s your heartbeat reaching out for her. 

It will always be her. 

"Serena."

She shakes her head, cringing again with what must be post-surgical pain from her c-section. 

There's nothing to say, not really. An apology doesn't quite cut it, and maybe you shouldn't have to say sorry anyway. It’s hardly your fault that she was a monster back then. Instead, the temptation wins again as you move closer, and place a soft kiss on her lips, resembling something of a habit you used to have. She doesn't let you go, however, grabbing for you with shocking strength for someone on high-grade opiates. 

God, kissing Serena is like no other drug. Her lips are dry, slightly chapped from stale hospital air, and her breath is probably bad, but you can’t even tell. Not at this moment, not as her arm grips tightly to your bicep and the intoxication of being touched by her, having her mouth on yours, again floods your veins. It is nothing like the past weeks. You thought there was something to that woman at the club, but she’s nothing compared to the racing pace of your pulse right now and the way you light on fire, and you’re not even high this time.

You don’t flinch or cower, not at all. Not for any reason and at any point. (When did that change?) The second you realise that you’re not anxious, you're not flashing back to Gilead, your muscles aren’t tense, and your heart is only beating faster due to pleasure, something sweeps over you like a warm blanket. Her cheeks are soft under your palms as you cradle her face, pulling back only to return to her lips, over and over until you’re lightheaded. 

“Fuck, Serena.” Your voice doesn’t even sound like your own it’s so strained and weak. It doesn’t seem real, but nothing about the way Serena makes you feel ever seems quite real. There’s a dream—an alternative reality you’re trapped in and this is simply the result. Your thumb brushes over her cheek, slowly.

“I missed you.” She’s almost crying when you finally let your hands fall away. “I’m so sorry.” 

It’s fine. Time has given you the ability to see beyond your own pain, and Luce has assisted with the rest. You know that already because it was an accident that exploded into something far more sinister, the uncovered too much that you lacked the capacity to handle, and she couldn't comprehend your agony properly. With a shake of your head, you toss away the apology, not because you don’t appreciate it or don’t believe it, but because you don’t actually need it anymore. Nothing about this ever truly required that; it was inside you. So now it's simple relief. That’s literally all you feel.

"I'm sorry, too," you whisper, trying not let your voice break the same way as hers when the reality of guilt begins to seep in, thinking of her alone for weeks, doing all this alone. You were there too, once, in a cold mansion giving birth on the floor, all by yourself. You should really be making apologies to everyone else in your life instead, but you've got to start somewhere and this is as good a place than any. How long you've held onto those words, even with all of Luce's work, it's been too long.

The baby gurgles over your shoulder and Serena’s eyes widen, frantically grabbing for the bed controls. You press the button for her until she’s sitting up and with ease, you place her child in her arms. Tears are still glistening on her cheeks as she peers down at her son, grinning and cooing softly. Pulling up a chair to her bedside, your elbows rest on the crinkly mattress as you watch her. A small part of you is worried that now she’ll put Nicole aside; she’s no longer necessary now that Serena’s got what she’s always wanted: a child of her own.

“Isn’t he wonderful?” she whispers, probably to you but you can’t be sure. You nod silently, uncertain if you’re supposed to answer her. 

After taking a shaky breath in, her blue eyes lock onto yours. “We did it, June,” she sighs, with wonder, and you forget to breathe briefly. Whether it’s the way she’s looking at you, or the way she’s said ‘ _we_ ’, or if there’s something else at play, you’re not sure but whatever it is, it feels euphoric. 

_We did it, Offred_ , she had said once upon a time while you had repressed the urge to spit in her face.

It's really, really, _really_ fucked up, and part of you hates yourself, but at this moment, even being aware that you had no biological contribution to this little boy, you _know_ he's yours too. You and Serena brought him here together, just like you did with Nicole: _We made a baby_.

Maybe you finally understand what she’s been talking about all these years. Maybe you're even more messed up than you thought. Or maybe those two things are one and the same.

After a long pause, she looks at you, carefully. “What do you need, June?”

Not once has she ever even bothered to ask you that, and you’re woefully unprepared to answer her. What _do_ you need?

So much. So fucking much, the moon itself couldn’t hold everything. 

You need for Gilead to have never happened, for all that rape to have never happened, for the violence and the suffering and the pain to have never happened. You need to forget it did. You need to feel safe, and protected, and for your children to have the same, and for this city not to be so cold and grey. You need Moira to smile again and mean it, not force it out with alcohol and cocaine. You need Hannah to stop waking every night with screaming night terrors of things she can’t or refuses to name. You need Nicole to never know why she came to be, or where, or how, or why because it’s too hurtful and too complicated to ever explain. You need Luke to forgive you and for you to forgive yourself for everything you’ve done to him. You need somebody to wind back the clocks to 2008 when it all started to go wrong, and you need to do it differently, not be so complacent, not have an affair with a married man, learn patience and awareness, and you really need your mother to still answer her Boston phone number, because you desperately miss her voice, no matter how dismissive and neglectful she could be at times. You need to not be here in Canada instead of at home, your real home, that doesn’t even exist anymore because Serena and her kind made sure that if their worlds were ruined, everybody else’s had to be as well. You need to be touched, and cherished, and held and told your name. Your real name, not anything else. You need to start again, as far from the good and bad memories as possible because all they do is remind you what has happened. You need less regret and more family.

Gilead broke you. It broke you into tiny fucking pieces and when you managed to put yourself back together again, nothing really fit together like it used to, and worst of all, there was a piece missing. You’d pressed and squeezed so many different ill-fitting, choices in there but the shape is distinct. Unmistakable now. Only Serena fits perfectly into that empty space. Perhaps she did that, she put you back together that way for her own selfish needs. But, honestly, it doesn’t matter why or how. The fact is, it’s the truth.

A swollen sigh wafts from your chest, too heavy for this time of night. “I need…” Your gaze shifts from Serena’s concerned face to the infant, then back again. Her fingers are twitching a little, and you want to believe it’s just the drugs, her eyes look glassy and a bit panicked. But she waits; she’s patient.

How to tell her all of that?

Her stare falls to your hands, specifically the one with your wedding ring in place and self-consciously you cover it. Why you do that, you’re not sure, but suddenly you know something else with startling clarity considering the divorce papers burning a hold in your overnight bag, and it has to do with the fact you still can't bring yourself not to wear this ring anymore despite every voice chanting otherwise and every shrink appointment.

“I need my wife,” you croak, tripping over the words as your voice cracks. Something inside feels less broken with the admission. That’s the first step, you think. Maybe it’s not true, but it’s all you can feel right now. Churning _need_ , for her specifically. For the idea of family she provides.

You need Serena’s touch, you need her body to set yours aflame, you need to hear her stifled laughter when Nicole does something stupid, you need to scold her for her damn pen chewing habit late at night when you’re both sitting in bed pretending to work, you need every annoying habit and shitty comment about Moira and arrogant grin and gentle word of affection. You need her to be there with you when Nicole is picked up from playgroup and Hannah from school.

Most of all, you need her to promise you that it is safe now, you need her to promise you that you’re safe now.


	10. shut the mouths of the lions

She has to stay in hospital for eight more days, longer than what is normally necessary, but after her difficult pregnancy and complicated delivery, the doctors here don’t want to risk anything. A healthy baby and a healthy mother are both things to strive for, apparently. That still fucks you up a little, this Canadian way of doing things now. Before, in most places, it was just about the baby and the mothers were afterthoughts in the whole process. Granted, you know it’s probably a little more about how a successful birth can mean another chance for another baby down the line. Gotta preserve the factory in working order. 

And this may also have to do with Serena’s particular brand of notoriety. 

Whatever the real reason, those eight days feel like a month. It’s easy to get the kids to the hospital, a little more difficult to convince Moira to come with. Luke has no interest in doing anything but dropping Hannah off in the lobby with you. Your daughters gush over the new baby, even though Nicole isn’t quite sure what to make of the crying, stinky lump of pink flesh she is meant to call a brother. To her, he’s merely a fun new doll that makes noises when poked.

She doesn’t mind your presence during the days, but Serena insists that you don’t spend the nights with her. So, instead, you work on getting a crib set up, the rooms rearranged with Nicole finally taking her big girl spot in the kids’ room. Moving back in is seamless and natural, and nobody—not even Moira—blinks an eye at the abrupt change. You see Luce more than normal, and despite her clear disappointment at your choices, she understands and perhaps she sees how much better you are now, or you hope so anyway because everybody else can. But she also finds you a spot in a different, vetted support group, just in case, she says. Just in case. And she assures you that it won't be like the other one because there are survivors there, just like you with complicated intimate relationships to their pasts, even now. For that, you are grateful.

When it's not bedroom decor and raising daughters, you obsessively wash your hair until the dye fades out and you can bleach it back to normal again. Normal. Everything now is about trying to get back to that ephemeral, indistinct sort of feeling. It helps pass the time a bit better than doing nothing. All the same, you’re uncomfortable in the bed alone so you cajole Nicole into some mommy-daughter bonding time by telling her it’ll be a long, long time before she gets this treat again. For long hours it feels, you lie there staring at your sleeping child that was the catalyst for so many fucking things in your life, and Serena’s, and Hannah’s. Every little, seemingly inconsequential link in the chain to freedom seemed to start with this little girl. With Serena, in fact, and her sickening obsession with this child.

You brush a lock of blonde hair from Nicole’s forehead and she sniffles in her sleep, like a kitten or a bear cub. Despite everything you know to be true about science, you still look at her and see Serena in her features. It’s so wrong not to see Nick in her any longer, but the more time passes, the more he fades even from the reflection of his own flesh and blood.

Nicole is just ecstatic to be _home_ again, and have you there too. She doesn’t care about anything else.

* * *

He doesn’t have a name yet. He’s still just "Baby Osborne", because Serena wants to be absolutely certain that she makes the right choice—that you both make the right choice. She’s so obstinate even about this.

On the drive home from the hospital, with the new baby boy in a car-seat in the back and Serena wincing in the passenger seat upfront, you can’t stop smiling. It’s dopey, and unbelievable, and you just cannot force it off your face. New babies do that sort of thing to you. Not even when she complains about your driving, or snipes directions at you, or groans at the other drivers on the road during the lunchtime rush hour traffic does it change. Clearly the drugs have worn off, but your good mood and smile appear impervious to her foul mood. Part of you knows though, she’s not really irritated as much as she makes out and this is just a habit. Something familiar that you’ve both missed. 

And part of you is loving it, because once again, it’s familiar in the way that blooms life into your veins, across your skin, and through your chest. Her bitching about the medications they had her on and the ornery overnight nurse and whatever else she can think of to find fault in is even welcomed. Complaints about everything. Well, she complains about everything essentially except her new baby boy and you (driving skills and navigation choices, aside), which, in all honesty, is a nice change not to be suffering her ire for once.

You miss four calls from your therapist. You delete all the voicemail without even listening, not right now. You can’t handle that yet.

That night, after the new baby finally settles in his crib for the first time, you sit next to Serena in bed and read. Just a list of names she’s compiled on her laptop because of course she fucking has made a detailed database while she was meant to be recovering calmly in hospital. It’s too difficult to pay attention however, as she presses up close to you, staring expectantly at your face for every minuscule reaction to each entry.

This is much better than Luke’s sofa, and even better than his bed. 

Because it's with her. 

“Stop staring,” you grumble, only partly meaning it. You sort of enjoy the rapt, unwavering attention if you’re entirely honest, especially after so long. Even at Luke's wavering attention for you seemed pitying almost, rueful and cautious. But now, something about the last few days has felt so much lighter than anything in the last two years, as if you’ve finally found some sort of peace. The way Serena snorts quietly at your demand only works to twist your heart into a quivering mess. Relief. That’s what all this is. Bulletproof. You feel fucking bulletproof right now. The only thing that seems to get through whatever strange armour you’ve developed is the way you can simply sense her beating heart, raising in tempo and the hot rush of blood. You wonder briefly if humans can turn into some sort of insect. You’ve never felt this aware of her body before, not even those incredibly intense moments of connection.

She doesn’t stop. Of course she doesn’t. When has she ever even _pretended_ to listen to you?

“Serena, fucking stop it.”

When you finally turn to her, she’s got one eyebrow arched and is pointedly smirking at you. Alarm bells ring in the back of your mind about the danger of making any sudden moves, especially since she is mere days into recovery from major surgery. Four to six weeks, the doctor had said. But, for God’s sake, the way she’s looking at you makes you wonder if perhaps she has a death wish, or more likely took too many painkillers. The energy coming from her is giddy almost; definitely high. She _has_ to be.

You snap the laptop closed with a drawn out sigh you hope is just the right level of irritated to get her to stop. It’s a little bit funny how the roles reversed. 

When you turn to her eventually, giving her your best impression of an angry mongoose, she doesn’t let her goddamn smirk waver even a little bit, enjoying every moment. When was the last time she was like this? You struggle to think of any incidences before this. Playful is certainly not in her nature and there’s part of you that wonders if childbirth can radically change a woman’s psychology to such a degree. She seemed just like her atrocious self on the car ride home, yet now, in the dark, quiet peace of your bedroom, she’s warped into someone you barely recognise, not a mask or even a mirage, but a fleeting spirit.

Then it happens. In the prolonged silence of you debating the pros and cons of this new alien Serena, something in her shifts back down to earth. Her eyes soften, twinkle maybe a little, but a glistening seems to well up the longer you stare. 

She swallows heavily, so much that you swear you can hear the sound echo through her chest. And then, her warm hands slide over your jaw, holding tightly as if suddenly she expects you to leap out of bed. 

_Fuck_.

Almost like in the hospital a week ago, you’re taken completely by the way she feels, and her lips against yours, the way she draws in each of your breaths into her until your head spins and your pulse thumps too wildly, teetering on the cusp of a heart attack. It’s a gentle death, you think. Her palms are soft but secure. Her mouth is pliant yet demanding.

For some reason, you can’t ever recall being kissed like this. Not by anybody. Not in your entire life. So full of gratitude, offering respite. 

A silken thread wraps around your fingers, your tongue, your lips, through your eyelids and skin and she pulls. Tightly. Slowly, like when you got stitches in grade nine. The prick of a needle, the drag of dry thread through inflamed skin, the delicate but purposeful tug of a wound closing, sheltering its painful rawness from the rest of the world. Your hands travel along her clothes, over a hip, carefully, as to avoid any healing scars from her surgery, but you do want more than this. The low hum of your body bounces off her bones and back, reverberating until you are on the brink of actually trembling for real.

Her scent is everywhere; her hands steady and certain. Suddenly, like gulping in frigid air, you’re thrown into memory of that night. For once, it’s not the worst one. It’s not even the accidental repeat performance. It’s when Moira dragged you back here and Serena was gone. That horrible, wonderful feeling as you crawled into her bed and inhaled her smell from the pillows and sheets and her clean laundry. It had felt like home. It felt like Boston, actually. A home that was taken away, destroyed, impossible to ever get back to.

And now, she’s here and you’re here and the two of you are trying to decide on goddamn baby names for your son. 

Without any warning whatsoever, you break. First comes the strangled sob, then the tears, then the urgent grasping hands, gripping her hair and face and holding her to you, absolutely unwilling to let go. You can’t. Jesus Christ, you tried to push this away in every single way you could imagine and none of it worked. 

So, it’s easier just to cry.

The salt of your tears ends up on your tongue, and in her mouth, and mixes with everything between you two, as perhaps it always has. You kiss her as if you may never see her again, like you’re saying goodbye.

Maybe it is, in some way. A farewell to the person you were before. A necessary divorce from Offred, from Offred’s memories, from Offred’s pain, and even from the lost June you were when you landed on Canadian shores. The June that tried to manipulate and use Luke for comfort not more than a month ago, and the June that sought refuge in the body of someone who could only be a poor substitute for Serena, that June too has to say goodbye. You have to let her go.

Still, you’re not sure how to love anyone anymore, or even certain that you can. Part of you has been damaged beyond repair, but Serena knows that and doesn’t care. Those words in the pages of her book… She—of all the people in the world—can love enough for the both of you, perhaps. She doesn’t appear to mind that burden. It seems so counter-intuitive that this horrible woman, the one that cared about nothing but her own selfish needs has a capacity far beyond yours. You can blame her for breaking that part of you, but the damage is done and there’s nothing remaining to gain from the accusation. She knows, and she keeps trying to put you back together, but she fumbles around, doesn't know how and neither do you. So, you let the shards fall to the floor, and just leave them there lest you get cut again.

The more you kiss her, and the harder your tears fall and the sloppier, lazier, more unravelled it gets, the bigger your prayers become to the point they overwhelm your body. Shaking, sobbing, and gasping for breath, you still refuse to stop kissing her. 

Whoever this June is now—whoever you have become—can’t live without this. There is really no sense pretending otherwise. You want to bury yourself in her body and settle there for eternity. Quiet. Suffocated. Inert and at peace.

It’s her that pulls away first, pushing your hair back, brushing her thumbs over your wet cheeks, still cradling your face in her large hands. She isn’t mirroring your tears this time, but she’s flushed and breathless too. You can’t stop the way you lean into her, rest your forehead on hers and just wait.

Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I’m glad you made it back.” _To me_ , she means. To this bed and this house and this family and this place, despite the world shouting at you about how wrong it all is.

From where? You want to ask, but know the answer is everywhere and nowhere at once. Because you can’t even tell where you’ve been anymore, the abyss was dark and only full of reflections of things, rather than the things themselves. But you see light, you see blue, you see the glow of something that should not attract you as it does. It’s not a reflection, it’s not a mirage. 

“Daniel,” you manage to say, your voice creaking in the quiet as the crying begins to subside with the blanket of calm falling over you. “I like Daniel for a name.”

In the lion’s den, you think, feeling every bit as sure about this as when you told Emily to call your baby Nicole, to honour Serena’s sacrifice. You can see Serena’s spreadsheet in your mind with all the meanings behind the name and are certain it’s a good choice. She can choose a middle name, if she wants.

You almost miss the quiet “Okay,” that escapes from her as you hiccup loudly.

  
  


* * *

  
  


A few weeks later, you hold the birth certificate in your hands. A little, healthy Canadian boy named Daniel James Osborne, with two parents listed. It still seems unbelievable that your name is there in crisp black ink, and right underneath Serena's. All Osbornes. Fred Waterford is not getting this kid, no matter what nightmares the future may throw at you.

 _Three kids_. You officially have a family of five with the villain of your story, Serena Joy, and the idea alone baffles you, sends you spiralling into a sort of soft, fairy tale-esque stupor. But not the Disney type, of course. The older fairytales, with uncomfortable, confusing endings that you couldn’t tell whether they were happy or a veiled warning about humanity.

Any moment you expect to wake up on a lumpy mattress in a cold, dim attic.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The morning Serena finds the divorce papers is deceptively _nice_. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, the smell of freshly cut grass from the neighbour's little patch of lawn is coming through the window. The air is still a bit chilly but nothing unbearable. 

In all honesty, you’d forgotten you even had them. After the night at the hospital when Daniel was born, you’d taken everything out from your bag and dumped it in a corner of the bedroom. She’d left your things to grow dust bunnies there, abandoned in the corner because there were much more important things to worry about—like screaming infants and grabbing even the shortest naps whenever possible—because you’re not certain you even remember what sleep is anymore.

Maybe it’s a lesson in how you should learn to tidy up your own messes because during one rare moment of peace in the middle of the day, Serena takes it upon herself to clean. Like, _really_ clean. She has a particular preoccupation with cleaning when she’s exceptionally stressed out, so you can always tell it’s going to be a rough day when she brings out the vacuum _and_ the bleach. 

Her voice calls down to you from upstairs, echoing shakily and first all your tiny hairs stand on end in alarm. Something wrong with the baby is always the immediate thought, but there’s a tremble underlying the tone, something angry yet wounded. 

Employing a tactic you often used to use against your mother, each step is prolonged, drawn out so much that it takes three times longer than it should to go the small distance upstairs to your bedroom. Delaying the inevitable, you think. Maybe she’ll calm down by the time you finally get there. Maybe. It’s never worked at any other point in your life, but there’s a first time for everything.

It’s worse. It’s way worse than the time your mother found your stash of birth control pills at fifteen. Or when she found your weed a week later, and it’s much worse than when she found out you were dating a married man. Those times, her cheeks had been flushed with a certain hue signalling barely contained rage. What you see on Serena’s face is previously unknown and you’re completely at a loss of how to translate it.

She’s just sitting on the edge of the bed, a stack of creased, folded papers in her hand. You recognise them right away and your stomach sinks so far down into your body it may be loitering in your toes at the moment. The way she’s looking at you is what hurts the most. 

For a long time, she says nothing and the longer she takes to break the silence, the more your blood thunders in your eardrums. There’s nothing to say except assure her it’s not whatever worst case scenario she’s making up in her head. It doesn’t matter anymore, and surely she’d been considering the same thing. Or maybe she thinks it’s new? How crazy would she have to be to misinterpret all of your satisfaction lately for discontent.

Yes, it’s been trying, even at the best of times, because Serena is a new mother and the baby is not the healthiest. It’s been scare after scare with his health and behaviour and general discomfort, and her paranoia certainly hasn’t helped matters at all. Sometimes you’re savagely at each other’s throat out of sheer exhaustion and frustration. But does she really believe that's a reason you would divorce her? 

Before you can formulate any sort of excuse about why they are still sitting in the room that you share with her and your new baby, her sigh wafts out. “Really, June?” Yeah, her voice is actually shaking. Whether that’s fury or heartache, you can’t be certain.

“It was before,” you blurt out almost incoherently, trying to stem the tide of whatever the Hell is about to break loose, as if saying that some sort of valid excuse.

Her expression remains stony but there’s just the slight twitch of her lips. No way is Serena Joy about to cry. Not over something so stupid that doesn’t even matter anymore.

“Nice to know how easily you are prone to give up.” Oh, she definitely isn’t about to cry anymore. The simmering outrage drips over every syllable and you actually step back, a learned habit around her. She has to be kidding. This is some cruel, very unfunny joke she’s playing on you to get a rise. She’s just bored, you assure yourself. 

Except there’s no smile that cracks across her lips. 

“Seriously?” Now, you’re simply incredulous. Not scared, not upset. Just baffled.

She pins you with a sharp glare for a moment, then drifts down to the stack of papers. “I signed them.” With a lazy shrug, her knuckles go white around them, crunching the edges and holds the papers out to you. “I saw you had, so I thought I should finish it.”

This is absolutely fucking certifiably insane. 

Your wife, who you have just had a baby with, who not an hour ago was making you lunch and talking about going to the Toronto Islands for a day trip with the kids, is suddenly serving you old divorce papers that, in all honesty, you’d entirely forgotten about. Even worse, she isn’t joking.

Tentatively, you step into the room, closer and closer to her rigid form and accept the offering with a trembling hand. Out of habit perhaps, you look down and begin flipping through, noting all the cursive signatures adorned on pages next to yellow sticky tabs. Then you realise what you’re doing, dazed or not. Your eyes lock on hers as anger flares up from the abyss where your stomach used to be a few minutes ago. With one more disbelieving scoff, you throw them on the floor in disgust.

“Fuck you.”

With utter contempt for her, you kick at the divorce papers and they go flying. 

“Isn’t that what you really want?” Perhaps her voice should be sharp, but somewhere in your tantrum she’s been deflated and wavers. Instead, it comes out ragged and torn. This irrational imbecile is the woman you’ve chosen? Really? This one? Out of all the people, men and women, on the entire planet, you’ve actively chosen an incredibly intelligent woman who definitely knows how to read and write, but chooses to just forget what calendars and time are in order to throw some sort of stress-induced fit to soothe her own insecurities. And to top it all off, at this point, she is clearly about to cry. Gone is the icy poise from when you entered. 

You watch with only slight amusement as she desperately attempts to hold herself together by whatever weak tethers she can still grasp at. No, you will not go to her. Not this time. But you will resign yourself over from anger. She’s way too pathetic not to.

“Did you even look at the dates on those pages?” 

You want to add “you fucking idiot” to that question but with a great deal of composure you manage to bite back the words.

For some reason, you didn’t expect her to say yes, but she does and seems to feel no embarrassment about that. So, she knew it was from before and decided that didn’t matter, that she was going to flip out on you about something in the past, for what purpose? Fun? Boredom? A little bit of stress relief?

“I had no idea it was that bad,” she finally admits, and once again, you’re struck with how completely clueless she is about, well, everything that involves any sort of mindfulness or empathy. 

Your tongue bleeds from how hard you must bite it. Stopping yourself from asking her if she is legitimately mentally incapacitated in some way is the most difficult part about this whole conversation. Dumb. Dumb, stupid, shithead Serena just being her usual old self. Of course it was that bad. Does she live on another planet? Still, there’s a way she speaks that weasels into your chest, slipping between your ribs and latching on. She sounds completely fucking sincere, which, in itself, is quite the rarity for her.

Her primly clasped hands twist and then separate, each lying atop a thigh in parallel. It’s almost like an invitation, or the closest to one Serena can manage since she is clearly made of stone.

A long sigh escapes your throat as you slowly move to pick up the discarded papers on the floor. A few have come loose from the staples and you take your time plucking each from the carpet and collating them again. Sometimes work habits really don’t stop. During the entire process, she says nothing, only stares curiously at you with all of her displeasure waning. Finally, and with another reluctant huff of breath, you hand them over to her.

“Do whatever you want, Serena.” 

You’re tired. You’re fucking exhausted really and do _not_ have time to fuck around with Serena’s mystical feelings of insecurity. If she wants to send them into your lawyer, let her do it. It’s the complete opposite of everything you want, and everything you know she wants, but if she’s going to be a living shitstain about this for the rest of your lives, it’s better just to get it over with now. She fingers the edges of the pages, staring, until she abruptly rises from the bed, glances over at the sleeping baby, grabs the baby monitor, and stalks from the bedroom.

For about a minute and a half, you truly think she’s going to look for an envelope. Her gait is heavy and determined, and somewhat resigned which is Serena code for “ _I’m going to do this_.” You know her too well. So, you follow on her heels, too close maybe but unable to actually speak. 

She really does knock you speechless.

When you reach the living room, she stalls and turns on you so quickly that you have to jump aside to avoid slamming into her back. 

“Sit,” she demands, her voice low and stern. You hate how it tickles something else in your belly and your heart flutters a bit because it’s meant to be punitive and chilling, but it warms you in the opposite way. You really, really don’t want to think about what Luce would have to say about that particular unhealthy and inadvertent reaction.

Without another word, you’re left sitting alone on the sofa as she moves towards the open fireplace. It hasn’t been used in at least a month, but you can figure out what her next move is about to be. She doesn’t disappoint.

She’s always enjoyed setting fires.

A burning match hits the pile in the hearth. It takes a few seconds but soon the entire packet flares to life and is blazing with orange and yellow light. She stands quietly over it, staring and waiting, and you’re not sure what the purpose of you witnessing this actually is. Instead of focusing on the burning papers that almost signified the end of yet another marriage, your eyes slide up her body instead, draped in an oversized grey cardigan that she’s pulled tightly around her chest.

She looks small, somehow. Smaller than she should. As she adamantly refuses to look even remotely in your direction, smaller still, and very, very tired. The grey afternoon light through the windows certainly doesn’t accentuate any positive traits on her drawn face. There are memories of Gilead getting stuck behind your eyelids again with this uncanny familiarity.

She used to stand at the tall window on the staircase landing that way, and just stare out to the street below. Silence, pensive probably, but often you doubted if she had very much on her mind at all. There wasn’t often very much for a woman to bother thinking about. It was a contagious habit really, because before you knew it, you did the same, but usually you were ruminating on destruction of some sort. Maybe she had been too. There hadn’t been much point in talking about it.

Except the fire crackles a little now, more akin to those stolen nights in her bedroom. Sneaking around, hiding in the shadows. She would stand quietly there as well, peering into the winter fire, contemplating anything and everything probably.

You see light blue, turned a deep sea green in the glow of natural firelight. Her robe, loosely tied around her waist, and nothing underneath. That was once. Only once. She’d pulled away from you, wiped her face on a sleeve of that silk robe, and stalked away as you had laid naked, exhausted, legs splayed and panting on her huge bed. At the time, you could only think about the possibility of Rita doing the laundry and picking up Serena’s dirty robe. All the evidence of _something_ , smeared across the sleeve and Serena just not caring any longer. There was a pitcher of still water on her table beside her knitting chair. Only one glass, you remember, as she took a long swallow. Because why should there ever be two? And she’d certainly never ask Rita for another.

The loose knot she’d tied in the belt barely held the robe in place and even in the haze of some post-coital bliss, you’d felt the twinges of more building because Serena was always so perfectly styled, careful, and specific in dress. But there she was: her hair tied back in the messiest bun you’d ever seen her with, robe falling open just enough so you saw her smooth skin all the way down from her neck, highlighting the side swell of her breasts, right to her belly-button before it pinched closed, and that gentle warm glow cast across her, draping the most excellent shadows in the perfect places. That was the first time the sight of her had literally taken your breath away, in a good way. You don’t know names, and wouldn’t come close to passing an art history exam if your life depended on it, but you could have sworn you’d seen that exact image in some old classical painting in an art gallery at some point. They called the artists masters of their craft, but nobody needed to create Serena. She just was, there, an unearthly vision in front of her fireplace.

You’d blamed the sex at the time. It had been messing with your perceptions.

Back then, you recall her turning to you eventually and coming back, with the rest of her water for you to share. She had sauntered, slowly, as beyond all possibility, that damn robe stayed just tight enough to cover her, but tempting enough that you’d felt the tingle in your throat all the same. She was just too much and the more you blinked it away, the more you saw that vision at the fireplace firmly burned into your mind.

She almost seems the same now, just older. Not wiser certainly because you’re pretty sure she’s actually more idiotic now than she had been then, which is saying a lot. But the angle is the same, her expression is the same, and the way it makes you feel is the same, except with a twinge more sadness simply because she seems so fragile now. Not at all like the vision of silent grace you’d seen before. Plus, she pulls her ratty grey cardigan she inherited from Mary even tighter and something about the fact you’re watching divorce papers turn to ash and she’s practically hugging herself tugs at you. She said sit, so you’re sitting and that’s all. 

It’s only paper though. It’s not going to burn for much longer and sooner or later, someone is going to have to say something. 

As always, it’s likely going to be you so you may as well stop prolonging the inevitable. 

“Serena,” you try, surprised at how loud your voice sounds in the room. 

When she turns to face you, there’s something you’ve never actually seen on her face. A type of sorrow perhaps, and her eyes are misty. She’s no longer the sublime creation on a Baroque canvas, not now with her hunched shoulders, eye bags, and clouded face. She’s just the woman who picks fights with you over beating dead horses. “You, come here.” It’s a command as well, and despite all her oppositional bullshit behaviour, she doesn’t argue this time. She doesn’t even do that irritated huff thing that has become such a staple of your relationship.

Both of you stare at the glowing pile of ashes, sitting side by side.

“When I want to divorce you, you’ll know.” Then you realise how that sounds. “If.”

She lets out a long sigh and leans back into the sofa cushions, still not making eye contact. “Hmm. Likewise.”

Great. Now that the air is cleared on that depressing topic, you wonder how to crawl out from underneath this shadow. It takes an exceptionally long and awkward minute for anything else to happen. She shifts a little, readjusting her sweater and still hugging it to her chest.

Solemnly, she says, as if rethinking her previous words, “I’m never going to ask you for a divorce, June.”

When you glance over to read her expression, she’s staring so hard at you it almost feels like a slap. “Is that... a threat?” Part of you laughs a little because if it’s a threat, it’s almost funny, but equally terrifying. 

“No.” Her glare doesn’t flicker at all. Part of you senses that she is never going to be that person who asks for that. “I am aware I may never have you truly, but you have me.”

If she punched you in the gut it would probably wind you less than those words. There is no humour in her tone, no hint of a smile on her face and it’s simultaneously incredibly scary and incredibly romantic. That little voice inside reminds you about her book chapter, about the final line, and you realise how much this all means to her. It’s no longer just about a family, or a child, or some fancy facsimile of happiness that was talked about in family planning books at her church. 

People say all sorts of things when they’re in love, or even infatuated. Mostly, it doesn’t end up being true, especially when the love is gone. Unless she’s saying she’s some kind of prophet and knows she will never fall in love ever again. Which is stupid. You once thought that too. You thought Luke was it. He was The One, your soulmate for eternity and then some. Then Gilead happened, and Nick happened, and Serena happened. Things just change.

She refuses to elaborate, which in all honesty is just fine with you. In fact, you’d rather she doesn’t.

Maybe she does know. Maybe she’s not as cynical. Maybe she’s actually well and truly in love. Some people are like that, you suppose. They simply know things like that, and when they make a promise like that, they mean it. You consider those husbands and wives that pledge themselves to the other, and even after death, after decades apart, they still never relent.

Serena is actually exactly that stubborn, when it comes down to it.

You blink slowly, trying to push out the thought of somebody being that completely in love. It doesn’t seem quite real, or even possible. 

She sits up straighter, turns away from you, and breathes out slowly. It sounds weak. You know she’s about to run away, escape upstairs to some haven of furious housework and scrubbing.

Your hand on her arm feels heavy, even to you. “Stay, would you?”

So, she does. You do. In silence. It’s not really accomplishing much of anything so eventually when the baby monitor crackles a little, you don’t say anything when she stands up to check on Daniel. 

How many times can she walk away from you? Maybe the 100th time you’ll get some sort of prize. You don’t quite get to add to the tally this time because she stops herself and twists around just enough to peer down as you break the silence, grasping at air with nothing but words.

“Was any part of our wedding real?” It still wears on you, even now, because you want it to be real but so much of everything has been nothing but a performance, and you’d never dared to ask her before. Just in case you get the answer you’re afraid of.

A wince flirts with her face, just briefly and maybe there is regret in there too, as if she knows. "Was it for you?"

Heat streaks up your chest, blooming your cheeks with a pink embarrassment. The burn of her sun on your face asks for nothing from you but truth. Your head tilts, eyes welling up with the feeling of being swept away. "I thought so."

Can something between two people be truly real if it isn't to one of them?

She sighs, knowing it's her turn to answer, and the foreboding nature of her long pause is not lost on you. “Did you ever read my book?”

What a curious time to broach that subject. With some hesitation at what she's trying to say, you nod slowly. 

“The last chapter?”

Again, you nod, eyes locked right onto hers. “I think about it every day.” That isn’t a lie; there’s something that comes up almost daily that reminds you of her words on those pages, how sincere and disarming they are, whether it’s a familiar turn of phrase, or a look, or merely a feeling that hangs over the room, thick with yearning and unspoken vows. 

She regards you, steadily and carefully. “All right.” But there’s a little flutter of satisfaction, and perhaps pride, in the way her lips twist, urging you to accept that despite all that surrounded it, she is real, and you're real together. A flush of warmth floods your cheeks with that particular attention that makes it impossible not to follow her upstairs and check on your son with her.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Months later, you still haven't woken up in that attic, even after that close call. Not yet, anyway. Instead, you fall asleep with Serena's fingers calmly stroking across the bare skin of your back under the warm duvet, in repetitive soothing patterns. It’s something she seems to have picked up from lulling Daniel to sleep. 

Motherhood, and not merely the play-acting she’d done with Rita in Gilead, has been a harsh mistress to Serena. He’s been a difficult baby, while she’s been ill and ill-tempered, chronically sleepless and sore, with one physical complaint after mental one, and full of anxious, frustrated energy for many of his early months but finally life appears to be settling as the time passes and she allows the entire household to help, as it should be. It has partly relieved the heavy strain that your own relationship with her has been labouring underneath, like some sort of toxic cloud of insecurity and frustrated fatigue. You remember when Hannah was born and you were up almost hourly for those first months and her fussy temperament. Luckily for you, that had only lasted a colicky month or two. With Daniel, it’s been almost six months of this particular circle of sleepless Hell, where he screams until he’s purple, instead of the plaintive cries Hannah and Nicole had done. Serena is up three to four times a night, with no shortage of aches, complaints, and anger to accompany it. She allows you to bottle-feed now though, at least. It’s a small relief for her, and honestly you’d rather feed Daniel at four in the morning than deal with an exceptionally irate wife from breakfast until bed.

While divorce hasn’t seriously crossed your mind yet, some days, you are incredibly close to just walking away. Well, at least for a few hours to cool off. Instead of stomping out in an indignant huff, Moira had taken your arm a few times, and pulled you down the street for a coffee or something sweet to push down the rising bitterness in your chest. It’s not as if you didn’t have really bad days with Luke in Hannah’s early months, but it was never quite this prolonged. Once, she drove you to a community centre and made you wait there for two hours until the support meeting began: Gilead survivors new parents group. Grudgingly, you sat on the bus afterwards admitting to yourself that had been necessary, and maybe Serena should come with you next time.

It’s like Serena doesn’t even recognise how horrible she is to you, to Moira, to Erin, to the Woodmans, even occasionally to Hannah and Nicole—which is when the worst fights always took place between you and her. Nobody, especially Serena, is allowed to snap at your daughters because she hasn’t slept for a week.

So, when you all managed to finally convince her to accept help, thankfully she didn’t dig her prideful heels in too deeply. After two nights of the shared community responsibility, not only did Daniel settle easier, but the almost six-hour sleep did wonders for both yours and her mood.

Now, the urge to storm out of the house comes and goes far more fleetingly and perhaps you can make it through this ridiculous infancy. 

  
  


When you wake up again later that night, it’s not in the house in Gilead. There are no musty remnants hanging in the air, just the smell of infants, sleep, and ever present coconut oil of nursing mothers. It’s so quiet and dark and warm here in your cotton cocoon and next to you the only sound you can hear is the gentle suckling of a baby. Peeking out as your eyes adjust to the near dark, you can make out Serena sitting up in bed, Danny nursing quietly. Her eyes meet yours, gently, and with a relaxed smile. The glow from the clock illuminates them both in a softer way than you usually associate with it’s neon green light. Your body sags in reluctance as you attempt to pull yourself upright as well, but you persevere because there’s something distinctly sublime about the moment, about the scene, about the pleasing softness blanketing over the room. Sometimes you feel like you don’t and can’t believe in God anymore, not since Gilead, but it’s the understated, subtly hallowed times like this that you wonder if you’re wrong again.

“Hey,” she whispers hoarsely, unwilling to disturb the stillness of the bedroom. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

Leaning over, your lips press against her shoulder for a long moment, and then you rest your cheek against her with a sigh, gazing at your son on her breast. Skin on skin on skin, so wholly natural, so instinctive it seems surreal to have never had this before. “You didn’t.”

Everything is so peaceful at night. So pure. Especially since so much of your life together has existed only in the dark like this where perhaps you couldn’t see things clearly, and all for the better. This time, however, it’s all startlingly clear. She bends over to you, drops a tender kiss to the crown of your head as you settle against her. If you could ask one, you’d corner a fallen angel and demand to know why God made it so easy to fall if you’re not supposed to. Here you are, in this moment, in something you’d argue is more seraphic than anything else created but also far more damned when taken in a broader scope. 

_If you can believe, all things are possible_.

Danny gurgles a bit, that happy baby sound, secure and content. God, even he can feel this too.

Maybe it’s even simpler than some divine intervention: Humans are animals. That’s the easy, and most often forgotten, aspect of being. There are beetles, and sparrows, and whales, and snakes, and humans. All sorts of others in between. You’re not magically separate from other animals by the grace of your own intellect. In some ways, perhaps. Humans are certainly more vile, more greedy, more vicious overall, but hardly unnatural. 

You remember the stories of feral children that both fascinated and terrified you as a kid yourself. The way these children were found, incapable of the things that define a human to most people. No speech, no hygiene, no clothes, no ability to use any sort of communication tool, no shame. They grunted and wailed and were essentially untameable. But they were still human children and they looked like human children, just slightly strange, a bit wild. Especially once they were cleaned up and presented to society and doctors. If those are a type of human, then surely it’s not a stretch to consider humans a type of animal, and of that, one that falls prey to all the same pressures and stresses of a wild animal.

Lock an animal in a cage long enough and it will either let the darkness eat it alive just to not hurt so much, or gnash its teeth and fight for life and suffer every breath for it. There were so many dogs in the shelter when your mother had taken you there as a child. Almost all of them had _issues_ , as she claimed. The strongest memory, aside from the smell and the cacophony of sound, were the signs posted on almost every cage:

> **Do not put fingers in cage. Dog will bite.**

It was in all caps, red and black ink. Dog will bite. A dire warning about caged animals and their inability to discern between a friendly gesture and a threatening one. After a while of being locked up like that, you suppose, everything is a threat. You’ve felt that.

Perhaps the dog is lovely when she’s not in the cage, if perhaps she was never to see the cage again. She probably walks on leash well, plays with other dogs and is patient with rowdy children, chews on a bone with her tail wagging, cuddles on the sofa in the evenings. She loves that ball when you toss it at the beach. But she’s been in that cage for too long, been too hurt inside it. And she’s still there, after years. Isolated. Angry. Confused. Lonely.

And that’s the one that likely kills the most. 

Someone else told you, maybe it was the old man at the shelter, that the biting isn’t anger, it’s fear. It’s pain. It’s always a reaction to something else.

Why would human beings be any different?

Daniel is asleep back in his cradle, and Serena is asleep next to you, breathing deeply and soundly. You were caged once too. You know how it felt. So was she. You snapped and snarled and bit out of fear—terror really, and loneliness and yes, anger because humans are so much worse than dogs. She too bayed at a cold grey moon, she too sank her fangs into any threat or friend at all. The cages were not just in Gilead. Society has built specific ones for women alone. 

You’re just two mangy, lonely rescues from the pound, maybe. Who cares if there’s nothing divine about that at all.


	11. anse dufour, mq

You’re a shitty mother, you think. No, you _know_ ; thinking not required. 

For months, a year even, Hannah has been struggling in school with all the Canadian kids, none of whom have had large portions of their schooling suspended for the sake of home-making and religion classes. There are all sorts of extracurricular programs for children of Gilead in Hannah’s position from tutoring to therapy to clubs. Schools have decided that it would be detrimental to hold children back to the grade that their schooling is actually at, but they’re also incapable of keeping up with kids their own ages, and there is no special school for the handful of escapees. It’s just not feasible, the school board claims.

Instead, Hannah gets filed under the label of Special Education. As a result, her peers toss her into the pile of similar social rejects by calling her “retarded” and “queer”. All this hatred even as she tries her best to join in, to not be “a Gilly freakshow”, to keep up to their speed when she’s integrated into their classroom. It doesn’t matter how everyday Serena patiently sits down with her at the kitchen table when it’s quiet in the evenings and they read, write, and do extra maths homework together, Hannah is lagging behind and she feels it. Moira takes Hannah out to sports and theatre, even movies sometimes, to help her readjust. Erin plays educational games on her laptop with her. You spend as much time with her as you can manage, if only to make her feel wanted and appreciated. And not to forget, Luke is, of course, a doting, concerned father who does all he can to raise up her confidence.

Sometimes, it’s not enough though.

Sometimes you meet her outside the school at the end of day and she has tears dried on her cheeks, and squirms away when you attempt to wipe them away in front of everyone. 

Sometimes she has scraped knees with bits of pebbles embedded in the sores and won’t tell you how she got them.

Sometimes she hides her homework from you where you can see handwriting that isn’t hers scrawled across it with insults that you had no idea she even knew and threats that make your blood run cold, juvenile as they are.

Sometimes she quickly closes her social media or email when you enter the room, but it’s too late: you always manage to catch a glance of the nasty names on the screen.

Worst of all, sometimes you forget about her when Nicole is whining and Danny is screaming bloody murder, and Serena’s too distracted by the babies to pay much attention, or when you’re just too exhausted to deal with it once again. You are a horrible mother. 

It shouldn’t come as such a surprise when you receive a letter in the mailbox informing all parents of children at Queen Alexandra of a PTA meeting next week. This isn’t the regular sort of parent-teacher conference that caused friction between you and Serena when you’d insist it was something for you and Luke, not her. This sounds oddly serious, and more widespread. The letter mentions increased peer bullying and “integration issues” for “non-regular students”. You hate the way they all speak now, all these awkward euphemisms. You suspect Hannah is what they refer to as a “non-regular” student, whatever the hell that means.

You’re on the phone with Luke almost immediately and he agrees to join you for the meeting, but you can sense his reluctance at admitting there’s something so seriously wrong. 

It also shouldn’t come as a surprise that Serena chooses that moment to wander into the living room, Daniel babbling in her arms and Nicole’s dinner smeared across her shirt. There are dark bags under her eyes and her skin is pale, but her blue eyes latch onto yours without any sense of weakness. She doesn’t even ask before making her move. Juggling the baby in one arm and snatching the letter with her free hand, she scans over it quickly with an ever-deepening scowl. She doesn’t give you a chance to even deny anything.

“I’m coming with you.”

* * *

You already know on the way to the school that it’s going to be a difficult evening. Serena’s been fuming silently in the front seat the entire drive to Luke’s and then to the school. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s complained that she doesn’t understand why Luke has to come, and you know she’s not that stupid. She understands very well, but doesn’t understand why you have to be so relieved when he does accompany you.

The fact that Hannah is _his_ daughter, seems to make little impression on Serena at all so it’s best to just ignore her.

The meeting doesn’t go much better. There’s the principal, vice principal, a few teachers and guidance counselors in the gym, in front of the makeshift meeting room. A bunch of uncomfortable plastic folding chairs have been set up for all the parents of kids in Grade 8. So many have arrived that a few parents are leaning against the wall at the back, unable to find a seat. They’re just telling a room full of mostly clueless parents the nature of bullying in the current climate. They use a lot of self-help jargon that sounds great, but actually means very little; they talk about home stressors, and shift blame for bullying onto the homelife, and mostly what kids are watching on TV and video games. It’s all rather boring, if you’re honest, because as much as they’re acting as if this is something novel, you’re pretty sure it’s been happening since schools came into existence. At least the way they’re describing it.

That is, until Serena’s hand shoots up and inwardly you wince. Luke catches your concerned eye, and he grimaces too. A groan is heard from someone a few rows behind, because Serena is hardly a wallflower and has made her presence incredibly known to everyone in the school. Especially Hannah’s teachers whom she’s often accused of discrimination and neglect, in equal amounts, every single term. 

She was probably just as insufferable as a student as she is as a parent of one.

The principal, Mr. Martens, ignores her as long as he can, but she keeps her hand stiffly raised in the air, with a false air of patience. The way her other hand, the one with its missing fingers, is twitching and fidgeting with the edge of her coat allows you to glimpse the truth. You chew your bottom lip momentarily, waiting for the inevitable explosion. 

God, she’s embarrassing. There’s a reason you prefer your more level-headed ex-husband in times like these.

With a loud sigh, Mr. Martens looks directly at her and nods. “Mrs. Osborne,” he grinds out, reluctantly acknowledging her.

“What are these bullying tactics exactly? What are the children saying to each other? What are they doing?” She shrugs. “I think we need some direct examples, or else this is just some aimless performance for the sake of seeming compassionate.”

She’s one to talk, you snicker to yourself. And you know many other people are thinking the same. There isn’t a single person in the gymnasium that doesn’t know who Serena is, or what she’s done in her life, and that essentially she has very little right to talk about bullying when her entire ideology rested firmly on the most extreme concept of exactly that.

A teacher you don’t recognise and the guidance counselor begin a liturgy of all the types of insults and physical attacks that they’ve witnessed, and attempted to curb. You recall seeing many of them in the flashes of words on Hannah’s homework or in her emails. Virulent homophobic slurs, racist slurs, all manner of wounding words to pick on the weaknesses of families who may not look the same, like broken families, or divorced parents. As if that wasn’t a common as fuck occurrence. 

Then there’s the ones that have no other target than Serena Joy Waterford, and Hannah’s been bearing the brunt of that amongst her peers. Clearly, the terms are learned from news reports or parents themselves and there’s little doubt that the kids have been nurtured with that insidious sort of soft hatred masquerading as a legitimate concern, the same intolerance that you’d felt seeping into your support group that shunned you for your relationship to Gilead’s finest traitor. 

With a perverted sort of curiosity, you’re fixated on Serena as she takes in the words, behaviours, and insults while her body goes rigid with fury. That vein in her temple pulses but she keeps her mouth clenched shut. There’s something else in her eyes though, something like tears. Not enough to threaten to spill, just a misty sort of look you’ve seen before. Luke clears his throat to your right and it snaps everyone back to attention. Without a second glance to you, Serena just fucking stands up in the middle of meeting and starts talking.

No. Shouting. She’s shouting.

If you thought you were embarrassed before, this is fifteen times worse. You can’t even concentrate on the words foaming from her mouth when your heart is hammering so loudly and your skin is so flushed with humiliation that you’re about to spontaneously combust. The principal looks helplessly and yet pointedly to you beside her and you want to crawl into a hole and die. Serena isn’t even Hannah’s guardian, officially, yet she’s up there spouting off all sorts of reprimands towards faculty and parents alike. You’re terrified to actually pay attention because that would make the entire situation much worse.

It's only when her voice cracks in the middle of a sentence that you raise your head from behind your hand and pay attention. For the first time, you realise this isn't just a poorly-veiled excuse to let out unfocused anger at unsuspecting victims. She is genuinely upset by the things she's heard.

Yes, she's incensed by the school's response to the bullying, but it also sounds like she's personally upset by the fact she recognises Hannah has been the victim of so much of this. She's never spoken much about her own childhood but there's something in the way her voice trembles occasionally that makes you wonder. She is so accustomed to being hated and ridiculed; maybe that's something that has come with a lifetime of practice. Something brand new clenches inside your chest as you listen to her.

There is only one person speaking up for your daughter, and it’s not you or her father.

You are a shitty mother. Officially.

As you glance around the room, most of the parents are glassy-eyed with boredom or snickering to themselves that Serena Waterford of all people would have the audacity to lecture them about good parenting and acceptable behaviour. One of the fathers rolls his eyes. That ignites something toxic in your chest, because she's right, and the things she's saying should not be discounted simply because of the mouth they're coming out of. If it had been anyone else in the room, no one would dare roll their eyes or dismiss her admonishments.

It's your wife (still a jarring concept), who admittedly has little stake in Hannah, up there tearing the school a new one for how it’s failed her.

Righteous anger, that's what this is and you can't help the flutter in your belly about how she’s defending your baby. Serena can be many things all at once, most of which aren’t particularly admirable, but she’s also congruently terrifying and sexy. That's probably her general state of being, honestly. At least in your opinion.

You’re reminded of that time, in Gilead, after Eden’s execution when Serena peered up at you through teary eyes and vowed to your daughter, or perhaps you in retrospect, _I will contend with he who contends with you, and I will save your children_. She is; she has. She’s doing it right now, for Hannah.

"...so this bogus, alienating, meaningless jargon coupled with the denial that any of you adults are ever even remotely at fault for the low-lying hate instilled in children is reprehensible. _I_ know how hate spreads and you are just sitting by and allowing it. This is all learned behaviours, learned anger, learned intolerance, learned hatred. You are carelessly spawning broken adults who will hurt themselves, or worse, others. Is that really the world you want for your kids?” 

She may as well have said, _“This is how you create Gilead. Congrats.”_

Serena falls back into her uncomfortable plastic chair with a loud huff. It’s interesting how she’s avoiding looking at you, as if she’s scared of facing your angry reaction, and normally that would be exactly what she sees. Instead, your hand reaches out and takes hers, giving her a squeeze because this time you’re thankful at least someone is standing up for Hannah, and all the other bullied children. She draws in a stuttering breath and sets her jaw firmly, poorly attempting to conceal how much she appreciates your support, and how much she obviously needs it. Luke on the other hand, says nothing, keeping his gaze fixed on his lap like a scolded child.

You can’t blame him. You honestly can’t, and you don’t blame him, at least not on purpose. You will always love Luke, and he’ll always remain part of you no matter who comes after him. Hell, once you thought you’d die without him, without the hope of once again being with him. Unfortunately, it was easier to believe those things when you were apart. The reality of life after Gilead was a different beast, and it didn’t like the old, rusty cage you’d built so many years ago.

Serena _fights_. She fights in a way Nick never did, in a way Luke never has, like you are only hers and she is going to ensure that it stays that way _no matter what_. She snarls, and bites, and tears at flesh with just a few words, an eyebrow, a crack of her knuckles. She doesn't wait for provocation; she is the provocation. In some fucked up way, you’ve always wanted someone to take the initiative by the neck, to do the fighting for you. Like, hardcore, throw themselves into the raging fire, damn the consequences sort of fighting without you having to ask.

And that brings you here, with Serena defending your daughter to a room full of people that hate her, whose children hate her step-child. 

What she’s saying, it’s right. It’s true. And God help everyone if they dismiss her. You'll snap too eventually, and you're going to bring your pitbull of a wife with you. If there's one sure thing here, it’s that Serena will have your back, jaws snapping and fists raised. She is nothing if not rabidly loyal, recklessly protective, and frighteningly indifferent about her reputation.

* * *

After the meeting, parents are filtering out of the gym, idly socializing and making their way down the corridors covered in the Grade 6's paintings and science projects. Luke mentions he’ll wait by the car to get some air and you know it’s because he doesn’t want to be associated with Serena any longer than necessary. Meanwhile, Serena had abruptly excused herself and made a beeline to Hannah’s teacher while you wait outside the gym. You can hear the murmurs about the meeting, about what was said, about Serena's obnoxious behaviour, about how she doesn't even have a child enrolled and shouldn't have been present. All while ignoring everything she actually said.

All you can think about is Hannah, and how this whole place has failed her so badly. How you’ve failed her while Serena has been the one to sit with her every night as Dan naps, earning her trust in minuscule amounts each time, carefully and gently teaching her what nobody else had time for. Maybe Hannah had confided in her? Your heart breaks at the thought of the secrets they shared with each other, shared experiences and hidden scars; all those memories that neither have ever trusted you with. And how you feel like you’ll never be allowed into that tiny corner of vulnerability, despite your ability to help both of them. Maybe it’s better, you assure yourself, that they have something. These last few months have been the best for Serena’s relationship with your daughter, finally, after months and months of Serena’s juvenile aloofness towards anything Luke-related.

One of the other parents stops to give her half-hearted regrets about Hannah's bullying, as if you’re in the condolences line at a funeral. Jeannie—you’re pretty sure her name is—leans closer to you but doesn’t bother to lower her voice at all.

“Just a suggestion, June. Your wife—” and that word always comes out like a sneer when people say it to you—“may want to keep that antagonistic energy to herself. It only makes things worse in the long run.”

She’s actually scolding you for Serena’s outburst, who you can feel coming up beside you as does a warm Chinook on a chilly autumn evening. Immediately you feel something rumble inside, something prickling behind your teeth like a snake waiting in the grass for exactly the right time to strike. You think about the way you saw a frightened, damaged child behind her eyes as they recited all the insults hurled at Hannah and others like her. It is truly amazing that even now, they’re attempting to bully her into silence simply because they don’t want the responsibility.

“Actually,” you begin, reaching back for Serena without even needing to look where she is. Solidarity. Loyalty. For Hannah. “I think she said exactly what everyone needed to hear.” Your fingers entwine with hers. “You know, in the children’s best interests, after all.” A smarmy sort of smile stretches across your lips at how good this feels, watching Jeannie’s arrogance waver right in front of your eyes. Did she really believe you’d side with her against Serena? You’re allowed to ream Serena out, at home, or in the car, or, well, anywhere you want, but nobody else is and you won’t join in their snide games either.

Jeannie’s cheeks twitch, clearly desperate to spit some juvenile insult at you, but knowing better than to do so. How is it that people like this are meant to curb bullying? The hypocrisy is staggering. “Yes, well...” She doesn’t have a better response. 

For once, Serena says nothing and lets you lead. You slide your hand free and over to the small of her back, guiding her away from Jeannie before her silent resolve dissipates. It feels nice, if slightly possessive. You could get used to this.

* * *

Hannah is hiding in her bedroom when you and Serena finally arrive home from the school, and Moira merely gestures upstairs when you ask. She glances between you and Serena, who in typical fashion, snags Danny's baby monitor and marches into the kitchen without a word to either of you. She’s not angry with you, you’re pretty sure. She was eerily quiet on the car ride home, even after you’d dropped Luke off, when normally she’s full of bitching and whining about whatever public drama she’s single-handedly created. For once, you’re going to prioritise your eldest daughter, who, you’ve realised has been unfairly pushed aside with all the other chaos in your life these days.

Knocking lightly and pushing the bedroom door open, you peer in to see her lying on her bed, with an old handheld electronic game in her hand. By the beeps and whirls, it sounds like the Little Mermaid game. She’d seen it at the thrift shop and begged you for it, even though there was no guarantee it even worked anymore. You remember those things from the 90s. By some miracle, all it needed was some fresh batteries and now Hannah won’t let it out of her sight.

“Hey, Hannah?” you murmur, a bit guilty about disturbing her but needing to check in all the same. Her face pops up from the dull light and passes you a hesitant smile.

She looks back down at her beeping game as you perch on the edge of her bed. Thankfully the boys are still downstairs watching a movie. Her voice is so tiny when it finally emerges. “It was about me, wasn’t it?”

“A bit.” You want to assure her it’s not a bad thing, that she’s not in trouble. “Not just you. All the kids in your school that aren’t having a great time.”

She gives no reaction at first, focusing intently on the game in her hands. It’s like she hasn’t even heard you. Shifting slightly closer, you cough. “Look at me, sweetie. Put the game down.”

With a dramatic huff, she slaps the game against the duvet and turns on you. “I’m the only one not having a great time, Mom.” You can tell when your baby is trying hard to be tough, but her voice crumbles halfway through and goes very quiet by the end of her sentence.

That may be the first acknowledgement she’s made to you about the situation. One step at a time. Even if they’re tiny ones. You know you can’t undo months of neglect in a single sentence.

“No, baby. There are other kids too. You’re not alone there, even though I know that it feels that way right now.” You scoot up to sit next to her, close enough that she can seek comfort if she wants it, but you’re not going to push your way into her space. She’s probably had enough of that to last a lifetime.

Her fingers are twitching against the game in her hand, and she’s anxious. God, she’s always so anxious about everything and really, nobody can blame her for that considering. “What did Serena say?” There’s an edge to her voice that is fearful, trembling even, and she’s so tiny next to you. Of course she’s your little girl, but she seems to have curled into herself over the past year. It hurts.

Whatever secrets she and Serena had shared, she’s terrified they’ve become known to all. “Um, she talked about a lot of things. Mostly how we parents and teachers should listen to kids more, and start being harder on ourselves and set good examples. She got really mad at Mr. Martens and Miss Welton for not doing more to help.” Your daughter relaxes just a little at your words but doesn’t say anything more. She’s so silent these days when, even a few months ago, she’d be bursting with all sorts of questions no matter the subject. “Hannah, what do you and Serena talk about?”

It’s been nagging at you, all the sorts of things they know and how you’re left outside the circle only guessing at the missing pieces. You know a defensive shrug when you see one and that’s all Hannah gives up to you. Her mouth sets in a petulant line and she stares down at the bright yellow buttons under her finger pads. 

“Hannah.” It’s worth a shot to try again, even more gently.

Another shrug. “Homework stuff.”

Maybe if you press her she’ll eventually let go, or she’ll close up completely. “What about not homework stuff?”

Hannah clearly is reticent. “Nothing.”

Taking a stab in the dark, you wonder if you can gain her trust another way. By lying. “I know Serena had a hard time as a kid too. I know she was bullied too, by some pretty mean people.” You’re surprised at how calm and certain you sound considering this is a huge guess. “And she knows a lot about stuff like that. And I hope that helps, you know?”

You still know nothing about her childhood except she used to go out in boats with her dad and brother, she didn’t have many friends, and her mother is a bitch. But that last one was firsthand experience. 

“Mom,” she begins, more of a question than anything else. “Do you like Serena?”

The question isn’t even close to what you were expecting and the whole concept catches you by surprise. Stumbling over an immediate response, you desperately try to get your thoughts to catch up with the sounds escaping from your mouth. “Um,” is about the only thing that comes out even resembling human language.

“She says nobody likes her at all.” Hannah sounds less concerned, and more pensive than you would have thought. “Does she mean you too?”

One day you’ll likely have to have this conversation about exactly what Serena is to you, and how it happened, how you make your peace with it, and why nobody else should ever replicate what you’ve done. Maybe Hannah is remembering before Daniel was born. That was a particularly ugly time for everyone and there is no way the kids didn’t pick up on it, despite the flimsy lies you, Serena, and Luke all told. Part of you is a little annoyed Serena seems to have dumped such heavy shit on your kid.

“No, she doesn’t mean me.” At least you don’t think she does. Maybe she does. Maybe she’s still thinking you’re only doing this out of some weird obligation, or lack of a better offer. “I like Serena an awful lot. Very, very much.”

Hannah seems lost again, staring at something indistinct. “I think you should tell her that. I don’t think she knows.” She huffs, sounding a little too much like Serena, and finally looks up at you. “I don’t think people tell other people stuff like that enough. Everybody is so sad all the time.” Her eyes are so sincere, so full of compassion for Serena, for all the other people she speaks of, probably for herself too. To her, it’s a lack of love that seems to be at the root of earth’s unending sadness.

“Well,” you begin, taking her into your arms. “I love you, very much. And your daddy does too. And Serena, Moira, Erin, Nicole, even baby Danny. Everybody in this house.” You place a kiss on her head. “Please know that, Banana.”

* * *

The old house creaks loudly after the sun has been down for a while. It’s like it slowly reverts back to itself in the chill of night. The cracks of old bones echo on the stairs, sometimes the roof snaps as it makes another wrinkle. The hot water pipe bangs in the walls if you run it for too long. When the wind whips around the streets and the trees sway in the orange glow of the streetlamps, it seeps through the poorly sealed windows. An eerie cold draft across the upstairs hallway has always given you pause, especially in hot summers like this. It’s probably the reason Hannah is convinced the house is haunted.

Inside the kitchen, it’s not much different. Under the haze of artificial light, the old worn linoleum tiles look even worse, like those old photos of abandoned mental asylums. You’d taken a tour when you were a teenager and full of morbid curiosity about what could make a person crazy, what kept them crazy. The greenish walls and grimy grey tiles remind you of that place at this particular time of night.

Serena is so much more then she seems, you think when you step into the kitchen’s warmth and hear the soft music seeping from her laptop speakers. It’s some melodic jazz music or something, that much you know. Gone are the Motown and soul classics from those nights in Fred’s study all those years ago, although you are aware she still enjoys the genre in the right mood, like your wedding. 

It’s such a direct juxtaposition to her attitude, which you can tell even from the doorway is highly-strung and pouring rage onto her keyboard at a frenetic pace.

Hannah’s question is still nagging at you as you watch Serena working at the kitchen table, hurriedly tapping away at her computer. It’s probably another article, something furious about what has just happened at the school. She barely gives you a glance as you enter the room, the blue light illuminating her like a ghost in a horror movie. But the look in her eyes is so soft, vulnerable perhaps. Wandering over to the kettle, you fiddle with the switch.

“Is Hannah all right?” Serena’s voice is weak and distracted yet curious as it breaks the silence.

“She’s okay.” The kettle begins to gurgle quietly beside you and the clicking of Serena’s keyboard resumes. You turn around, leaning back against the counter and regard her quietly. Often times, she knows when you’re staring at her and she’ll complain, but tonight, she’s either oblivious or too tired to whine. For some reason, everything about this moment is being overshadowed by old memories of Gilead.

That one dark evening when Serena finally returned from the hospital after the bombing. She stood there, randomly sharing insights into her life from before Gilead, with a wistful sort of air as if you were some strange—if reluctant—confidante. You’d seen glimpses of Serena before that, but something about that particular memory she relayed, how it wasn’t about politics or babies. Just couples’ holidays to swanky Caribbean islands. Obviously, she's the type of person to vacation in Antigua. She, however, was not the type of person you’d expect to cherish the memory of picking up beach garbage. That was the highlight of her holiday, and you’d wondered then what that said about her as a person.

It was also the first time you realized exactly how much influence you could wield against her, if you just choose carefully which fears and parts of her desperation to prey on with surgical precision.

The kettle is rumbling louder now and she’s typing, unperturbed by it. You too, are lost in a trance of nostalgic contemplation. She is both the same and a different person than she was back then. 

Your tongue lolls words around in your mouth, but nothing seems to bring them to life. You can’t stop thinking about her childhood, about her reaction tonight at the meeting, about that way she set her jaw and the flinch in her eyes when you took her hand instead of shunning her for once. You can’t stop thinking about how Hannah didn’t deny Serena had shared hidden memories about a troubled childhood, about being bullied—and you have no idea the extent or the influence they had on her development as a person. You’re scared of how the same may happen to Hannah, even though they are completely different people. 

Sometimes you believe people like Serena _—_ _extremists and bullies_ like Serena, that is—aren't born, they’re built. Maybe that’s an excuse or a way to shift blame away from responsibility; but sometimes you think some people are just born weaker, more susceptible to a certain type of development. The same way some people are allergic to peanuts simply due to being born with a haywire immune system, some people are just born with a weakened resolve. A lower resistance. And environment—the nurture side—determines how vulnerable they ultimately become. You’ve certainly heard the arguments that “I was bullied and I didn’t turn into a bully myself!”, “I was raised in a fundamentalist religion, and I didn’t become a raging homophobe.” You’ve always nodded. They do have a point. Not everybody does succumb to that darkness. Some are stronger, bolder and braver, and that begs the question too if cowardice is innate or learned, a trained behaviour. And with that, you hate to think about how cowardice is taught, how it’s beaten into people one way or another; you know all too well. You’d spent so many years in a scratchy red dress, reciting incantations and bowing to your torturers and oppressors with reverence.

But surely, it’s better to believe that most people are actually born good and are turned bad, rather than believing they’re just bad from the root and nothing can change? It’s not a get out of jail free card. It’s throwing someone a life preserver.

And you’ll be damned if you’ll allow your baby to follow down the same, wrong path as Serena had taken. So, you need to know her past, how deep it went. You want to know every single thing about her suddenly, when before you were happy to merely gloss over the shadows.

Your entire body seems to jump at the click of the kettle. The reaction must startle Serena as well because her face swings to look at you so quickly you’d guess she’s got a case of whiplash. With a slight shake of your head and a sigh, you turn around to grab a mug and tea bag. 

There are none on the shelf. Where the fuck are all the mugs? Staring almost blankly at the empty space where a mug should be, you feel her coming up beside you and reaching above to pull one down from a shelf out of your reach. They’re the good mugs. The souvenirs, saved for special occasions only, or in other words, out of the reach of children who are more than likely to shatter them without care.

You do _really_ like that she’s tall. It’s terribly convenient. 

“Here,” she says quietly and places the mug next to you. Something about the tiny, insignificant gesture causes a swell in your chest that makes you lightheaded. 

She says nobody likes her. Hannah sounded so sad, betrayed almost.

Surely, Serena’s not that stupid. But then, your daughter is not stupid either and she too thinks nobody likes her, and she also believes Serena and her share some secret bond. 

As Serena is about to turn to go back to her work, you find your voice. “We should go to Antigua.” Her whole body seems to tense but she doesn’t say anything. “I want to go with you. When we can.” You’re not sure what you’re trying to say to her, and clearly neither does she because the look on her face is nothing but confusion. More timidly, you add, “I want to pick up sea glass with you.”

For a second, she doesn’t react at all, then her head tilts to the side and her blue eyes light up, before dimming, taking on a glimmer you’re not certain you’ve ever seen before. “June,” she murmurs and seems to choke herself on your name. It cuts right into your heart somehow. When she manages to speak again, dazed, it’s barely above a whisper. “Why?”

With a shrug, you glance at her, hearing Hannah’s small voice in your head again and again. “Why not?”

 _We deserve it_ , you want to say. _Because I want to see that Serena, the one that you were once before all the madness, because that’s something you’ve never shared and I deserve to know her too_. But another shrug is all you can manage. Her eyes narrow, as she attempts to puzzle through your sudden motivation to take a garbage-picking holiday to the Caribbean. Even so, she relaxes, and rests a hip against the edge of the counter as you go about pouring yourself some tea. It’s nice like this, the time away from the rest of the world. Night will always remain your best time. The solitude, the escape, the quiet. Like hiding under a duvet. It’s where you and she feel safest together.

After a prolonged silence, she moves away from the counter and closer to you as she carefully takes the mug from your hands and places it down. Somehow, and you’re still not sure how, your hands find their way immediately to her hips, pulling in tighter until you’re flush against her. The tiny gasp from her is always worth it. Not long after, her arms are loosely around your neck. And then she too pulls in, lowering her lips to the shell of your ear.

“I’d much rather take you to Martinique.”

You’d come down here with the intention of quizzing her on her awful childhood and making a plan to prevent the same nasty radicalization from happening to Hannah, but now you’ve found yourself in the middle of the kitchen, swaying, just a little, in time to the wordless music from her laptop speakers as she sighs in your ear about the tropical paradise she wants to whisk you away to. You’ve never been the type of sappy romantic cheeseball to slow dance in an otherwise empty kitchen and feel absolutely no silliness about it. If someone had told you about this even a year ago, you would have laughed in disbelief. Not with Serena, especially. Not with the ice queen who doesn’t let anybody get through her tough shell except via rage. 

“One day,” she idly murmurs again, and rests her cheek on the crown of your head, and something inside you bursts. Like police cuffs, your arms tighten around her. And you’re both still fucking swaying. It’s literally going to kill you because this is perhaps the most romantic shit that has ever happened and you’d never thought it was possible. 

After Gilead, you’d given up on feeling and experiencing so many things again. Simple things really. Things that you thought could only happen to someone who hasn’t been through the Hell that was that place, and more importantly, things that only Luke could give you when you were a different, less hardened person. That June was a different woman, more open to cliched romance, less cynical. The June you are now knows so much better and is awake to the world in the most skeptical and sardonic ways. Fairytales are for babies, and all that died when you were put in a red dress for ritualised rape. 

Yet here you are, even after the wedding that you didn’t think was possible, being held, nonchalantly slow dancing in the middle of the night with the brutal woman you have claimed as your wife. Your face nuzzles into her sweatshirt, and nowhere has ever felt this safe before. You inhale deeply as you feel her chest rising and falling with every breath. Lightly, you reach up for her arm, sliding along and taking her gently by the wrist and cradling her hand between your bodies. Without thinking, you draw her hand to your face, and place careful kisses against her missing fingers, one of which holds her wedding band. That’s who she is now, and you appreciate it. Each time your lips meet her skin, she gasps, very slightly but clearly. The flutter of her increasing heartbeat can be felt under the pad of your thumb around her wrist. You hold her maimed hand against your mouth, breathing deeply.

“I like you, you know,” you mumble, finally squeezing out what you’d meant to say for half an hour now. You can sense the moment the words hit her brain because she freezes for just a half-second. Her fingers twitch against your cheek. Maybe it's not what she wanted to hear, but also maybe it’s better. Loving someone is not a choice, there’s a degree of helplessness, of powerlessness to it. Being caught in the rain without an umbrella and falling in love are along the same lines. But liking someone? That’s an active choice, you insist. “So don’t say nobody does. I do.” Don’t lie to my daughter, you want to add but she’ll understand well enough.

Her response is curt, and a bit louder than expected but so terribly Serena. “Good.” Maybe she’s caught off-guard. Whatever the reason, she hasn’t pulled away. It is likely as good a time as ever to dive in, because this is how you’ve always gotten to her: lull and tempt her into submission with affection, then pounce.

“I want you to tell me what you’ve told Hannah. About your childhood.”

Now she does stiffen, and she pulls her hand away, dropping it down to your waist instead. “ _June_.” There is nothing but warning in her tone.

You will not back down from this, and she knows it. “I deserve to know the person I married.” A sense of impending thunder seems to ripple through the room at those words.

“What about how I deserve some privacy?” Gone are the soft whispers and relaxed embrace, although she hasn’t pulled back yet.

“From what?” you scoff from your comfy burrow against her chest. “Serena, the whole world knew what a weakling you are when you helped create Gilead. It’s not news.” You’re almost hoping to wound her again, to make her vulnerable and accessible, but it doesn't feel great. “Please, I just want to understand you better.” 

It’s reached the point that it always comes to eventually when you attempt these sorts of conversations with her. In two seconds, she’ll pull away in a huff and deny anything needs to be discussed further. 

“You know me just fine, June.”

And there it is.

She’s moved away and back into her seat before you can even catch your breath from the sudden cold. Shut down. Conversation over. Case closed. Again. Martinique seems like it’s on another planet now. 


	12. newton's laws

A hard snap on wood, of her heels. Those blue pumps she always wore around the house, for no reason at all. Snap, crack, the sound of a tree limb being severed by the brutal westerly winds. Each sound in succession, like drumbeats, or frantic heartbeats. With time, your blood began to pulse with them, a sick joke of nature that she could even control the movement of your heart. A caged animal can be conditioned to anything, really.

Hearing those shoes coming up the stairs was always the worst, even more so than in the kitchen, or down the pavement outside. Something about the sheer determination, the way she wanted to make her presence known and unbearable, so that you cowered and tried to cover your ears from its racket, made your blood both boil and freeze.

Those footfalls usually meant pain.

When she’d sneak into your room to crawl into your bed and slide her possessive hands over the swell of your belly, she only wore slippers. If she wasn’t seeking retribution, she was quiet, she knocked, she waited.

But when the crash of wood echoed up the stairwell, she was neither seeking placation nor permission. The crack was rage.

You still recall that time, long before this, but not long after you’d taken her god away from her. Twice, you think it was. Only twice you’d been with her that way. Once in your room, once in hers. It was so much worse on her bed, because when you gazed at the ceiling above, you could smell her husband’s come and aftershave, feel his brusque thrusts and hear his grunts. It didn’t matter that his wife had surrendered on her knees before you, or that her touches were longing, gentle, and hungry as she devoutly worshipped your body. That fucking ceiling, and that fucking bed. Your nightmares still feature that bedroom.

Her heels had cracked against wooden stairs, like the snap of thunder, or a machine gun. She was so fast, so loud, barrelling up to your attic. It had been the night of the Ceremony, the first one since you’d fucked her. Hard. Of course she was livid; she always fell upon fury to push down anything else.

You had been in the bath, with Rita puttering around your bathroom, tidying things, and preparing some stupid soap, fluffing a hang-dried towel that would never, ever be as soft as the ones from a dryer. Man, you missed dryers back then. You remember the way Rita glanced at you when the footsteps started coming closer, and you rolled your eyes. You both smirked, but even now, you’re not sure what Rita was thinking. Surely she didn’t know then.

By the time Serena had flung open the door, her cheeks pink with anger and her eyes dark, all the shared smiles had evaporated.

“Get out!” she shrieked at Rita, a howling screech like you’d never heard before, and really, you’d seen her at her worst. When Rita had sauntered, slowly around the room, Serena screamed again, even louder which finally sent Rita scurrying away.

Once you’d heard a car accident. Just heard it, and only rushed to the window after the sound had penetrated inside. The door slamming shut seemed somewhat like that sound, the way metal wraps around a wooden pole. Crunch. Deadly. Victims trapped inside.

And then absolute quiet in that time after the crash and before the emergency responders arrived.

You remember shivering in the hot water at that moment, covering yourself as best you could, and bracing for her fists to land on your body. The shooting pain never materialised.

Instead, the moment the door closed, she was still. Eerily silent and statuesque, looming over the room, even from seven feet away. It was a different sort of frightening than you were accustomed to from her. Discomfort inched up your spine, in tiny increments until she had your entire body on edge of anxiety; that had been something entirely new. What sort of nightmare was being born in her silence?

But most of all, you remember how she drew in a staggered breath, startlingly loud for the small space, and her eyes had swept across the tub, into the hazy water, slowly crawling along your naked body as a cat stalks a mouse. Fear sizzled in you underneath her gaze, and you had tried to duck around it, to ignore the way it both unsettled and strangely aroused you. 

It was only then that you had taken a careful enough look to realise something was off about her. She stood there in her heels, but wearing nothing but her night robe. Even more unsettling than the eye of the hurricane was that, right there: how out of place she was, lurking around the doorway.

“There won’t be a Ceremony tonight. You don’t have to,” she paused and gestured absently to your prone form lounging the bathtub, “do this.”

You never asked how she managed to get out of it that time. Probably a simple excuse of feeling unwell, if you had to guess. You never had a chance because no sooner had she made her monotoned and stony announcement, had she slipped towards you, her heels echoing softer, until she toed one off, and then the other. 

Her turquoise robe swept down her arms, down her legs, until it pooled neatly on the worn wooden floorboards and your entire body had clenched, not wholly out of dread either. She was left standing naked before you in the falling light of the evening, an offering from the shadows. 

Serena Joy Waterford was so many things that the world could never see, and you knew that already, yet “seductress” would not have been on your list of guesses. Her bold, almost careless, showcasing of her own body contrasted so heavily with her demure, religious housewife persona, and her outward desire for Godliness and decorum. You should have known when she first let her rage escape that she had many more secrets to share. Valiantly, you'd tried to ignore the twitch of your fingers at the sight of her stripped bare in your bathroom, or the way your breath hitched and your thighs parted involuntarily, in anticipation. She was more powerful without the strong blues and teals of her position and she knew it, and more than aware of the effect the strictly forbidden sight of her naked body alone could have on you, especially as she knelt down beside the bathtub, mere inches from you. And you nodded your consent to her, knowing everything all at once.

You had suddenly understood the heels. She knew what they signified, what pantomime she could mimic with the tight slap of them against hard floors. Her brisk pace and fiery demeanor, an act put on for Rita's benefit, and for cover. Fred surely too would have heard the familiar claps of thunder and the screeching caw of her anger. You were reminded of the way birds of prey draw predators away from the nest by making a scene, and by pretending to be injured. 

The nest was the way she slipped her hand under the warm water, lingering over your breasts, down across the soft pillow of your stomach, and dipping lower still until she was up to her elbow in bathwater, and found the dense curls between your legs. Her other hand lost somewhere you couldn't see on her own body. You had even squeaked out a quiet peep, as a fledgling may do, as she probed deeper. God, it had felt so good, much better than the numerous times you’d done the same to yourself in that very bathtub.

She hadn't kissed you then at all, not once, but she watched you like a hawk as she made you come, as you bit down on your own lip and gripped the edge of the tub until your knuckles were as white as the porcelain.

As the waves ebbed out, she froze, only her hand sliding over your thigh to cup your hip, resting, and the heat of her next to you. You recall the smell of her sweat, her stray hair tickling the side of your face, and her warm breath against your neck. She’d collapsed in a way too, riding out of the hazy aftermath with you, her forehead pressed to your temple as your whole body heaved and you’d gasped out her name, in a whisper. 

The faucet dripped, loudly, in the relative silence. It hurt your ears. All you’d wanted at that moment was her strangled panting in your ear.

Afterwards, you remember how she stood, her breathing ragged and her skin flushed too, washed her hands in the bathwater, dried her arms, and her body where the water splashed her, with the towel Rita had just fluffed for you, and drawn up her robe, as if nothing had happened. It was all part of her premeditated plan.

What a monster she had made of herself. What an affliction it must be to have had such a ravenous appetite in a place like Gilead that starves women from the outside in. You could smell her even so, the sweat and her arousal as it wafted in the air and she remained untouched by you and unknown. She may have found a way to cover her sins, to keep her uniform robe dry, but you had known by the unsteady sway of her body and by the musk in the air, exactly how inflamed she was.

Her heels were the last things to resume their place, and the snap and crack against the grain was all it took for the mood to shift again.

Other June, the one who lived before Gilead, maybe that June would have made a loaded quip or offered up an invitation, to tell her to _jump in, the water’s fine._ But the new June, the one you saw in the reflection of the bathwater, merely had watched Serena gather herself together, piece by tiny piece, and straighten her shoulders. A deep breath. Suddenly she was leaving, her footsteps hard and furious again, stomping defiantly down the hallway and fading down the stairs.

You’d wondered then how many of those other times, when she’d blown through the house like a November gale, when she’d thrown around her words and fists, when her voice took on the furor of a caged lion, how much of that was a cover just the same but with nowhere for the energy to land. 

It’s a sick excuse, you know. But maybe she didn’t even recognise it either until she lost touch with her God. You’ll make excuses for anything, it seems.

* * *

Serena rarely wears heels anymore.

It’s not that you mind at all. In fact, you’re so short compared to her in those things that it’s nice when she doesn’t tower over you. So, when she comes downstairs, and you hear the harsh tap of her shoes against the old kitchen linoleum, you startle briefly and try to ignore the passing shudder. They are the same footsteps, the same pattern, just not as angry. For a moment, you pause from practically force-feeding Nicole her least favourite vegetable ever, and look her over. 

She’s distracted by loose papers in her arms, but there is the Serena Joy Waterford from the old days on TV: tailored pantsuit, a little less severe and prudish perhaps than before though, modest heels with just enough power, and her hair down, slightly curled to belay a softness that you and your children know to be genuine, but most people think is only for show.

It’s a big day for her.

She’s done so many seminars and speeches by now that it should be second-nature but this is different. This is a paid event, not merely educational, and they are paying quite a lot of money to hear her speak about Gilead, and about her life. And, to add to her anxiety, you’ve already told her you have other engagements that can’t be shifted right on the heels of that odd not-quite argument from a few nights back, after the meeting at Hannah’s school. Of course your potential absence caused an argument, because Serena still, on some level, considers herself centre of the entire universe. As a result, she’s avoided you most of the morning and pretended that she’s engrossed in rereading and planning the same seminar she’s been working on for weeks and knows by heart. There’s no point in challenging her.

This one is going to be filmed and broadcast on TV. Probably the internet too, that always seems to be the more popular way. Maybe you should feel worse about not being there, on her big day, but she’s a grown woman and perfectly capable of handling it on her own. She barely glances at you on her way out the door, and you recognise the passive-aggressive punishment, only rolling your eyes in response and babbling at Nicole about how annoying her mama is as soon as she’s out of earshot. For some reason, you can still hear her heels clacking against the wooden floors even long after the front door slams.  
  
  


* * *

You’d sworn you weren’t curious, and more so, you didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, or to encourage her petulant and juvenile behaviour from earlier in the day. But, like all things Serena, you relent. Of course you do. You always have, eventually. All old, meandering rivers once were cascades over sharp rocks, where time and friction makes the jagged edges into smooth curves. Fuck, and there’s nothing you are more addicted to anymore than her smoothness, as pathetic and wanton as that may be.

She’s speaking, her voice loud and certain, as you crack open the auditorium door near the side of the stage. Other than her words echoing through the air, there isn’t a sound to be heard. Not a rustle of an impatient bouncing leg, not the crinkle of a gum wrapper, not the stifled cough of an uncomfortable listener. You make sure the door closes behind you as quietly as possible.

In the front row, off to the side, there’s an empty seat with a Reserved sign on it, and a name in smaller print below. You don’t even need to read it to know who it’s waiting for and you slip into it as inconspicuously as possible. A tightness in your chest makes quick work of any nerves you’d previously entertained about showing up. She had saved a seat for you, despite knowing you weren’t coming. Or maybe she suspected you’d show up, at some point, because you _always_ do.

“...the power of shame. When that just… lives inside for so long it turns into something more insidious, much more angry. It never brought me anything but shame, fear, anger and so that’s all it could be to me. It’s not an excuse.” She pauses, staring off into the abyss, as each of its eyes stare right back at her. Then a smile breaks across her face. “But when those pathways are realigned, reassociated, and there’s joy, and compassion instead, attached to it, everything changes.”

Does anybody else see it? Maybe it’s just you, but maybe they do. 

She’s glowing. It’s not just the blinding spotlight focused intently on her every movement across the stage, and it’s not some dirty air filter causing an unhealthy haze through the room. It’s her. Your wife. 

The hushed murmur still echoes in your memories, the coy looks of women and the horrified faces of men at tables all through that opulent ballroom, the way Serena’s gaze drilled into you for just a moment as she stood up and spoke. It was the first time you’d ever seen her that way, and while people could have told you a hundred times what she used to be like in the years leading up to Gilead, nothing had prepared you for the wall of terror you’d rammed into at that banquet. 

Fear had slithered along your shoulders, down your back, but something else too. It wasn’t hatred exactly, although that certainly seemed the most pressing. Resentment certainly. Respect? Admiration? Putting those feelings and the image of your abusive, hateful mistress in the same space had been truly the horrifying part. Part of you had trembled with surprise, and resented the seeping warm blood of awe. Yes, awe. Her goddamn audacity. That she would have the fucking nerve to just grab her place at the table from under all those stupid little men, in front of all those shackled women. 

Sometimes, it didn’t even matter what was coming out of her mouth and all the nasty lies she spouted, because that was rebellion, her staking claim to speech as a woman. 

Unlike now, she hadn’t been doing it with any end goal other than satisfying her own ego. Selfishly snatching the spotlight to herself wasn’t an open call for revolution against the status quo of Gilead, at least, probably not. It’s impossible to know and you’re well past the point of asking her.

Here, however, you’re allowed to feel awe, you’re allowed to admire the way words slip from her lips, perfectly formed and how they hit their targets with startling accuracy. She’s now on your side, and when she’s up there, talking about God knows what anymore, you allow yourself to relax and take in her beauty, which is a selfish indulgence of your own that you’d never been given permission to have before. Because that’s how she shines, on stage, speaking to strangers, inspiring masses of people. In your bedroom, of course you’re allowed to bask in everything she is, and all the ways she makes your heart shudder, but that’s just for the two of you. You admire her too when she’s with the kids, or when she’s intently focused on her writing; there are literally hundreds of moments you can point to in everyday life that something in your chest grows hot and full. (It’s not love, you remind yourself because you’re incapable of feeling _that_ for her after everything.)

Except seeing her in front of hundreds of waiting faces, that’s different. Her blonde hair reflects the spotlight, a halo forming maybe. That’s your wife up there, entrancing all these people. And her voice is so certain, so self-assured, with such a unique timbre that reverberates in a way you’ve never felt before. 

_Majestic_. For an editor, it’s a shame that’s the only word you can seem to find. She is living words, dancing with prose, bringing each idea bursting to life and it’s where she’s meant to be. This is her calling. And even more, physically, you can’t help the tug that you feel somewhere below because she’s all of that, and you get to openly gaze at her body. Even under the tailored suit, every curve and suggestion of skin is making your skin flush.

For a moment, you feel as if you’ve fallen underwater, surrounded and breathless, unable to make out the world as clearly as it just was, your body pushing and pulling through some weightless miasma. It’s horrible the way your lungs are craving fresh air and your hands clawing for dry land. Nobody can see that; nobody senses the panicked emergency, the way your entire body is collapsing in on itself for no reason.

The thing is, you’ve always loved swimming, and diving as deep as your feeble human body can allow.

There are questions coming in from the audience, and she’s sparring with them, stumbling only enough for someone like you to notice, but a casual observer who isn’t privy to each of her minuscule tells wouldn’t catch on. You can’t even hear the words in the way you should. There are sounds, they make sense, but listening has become Herculean. Water rushes around your ears instead.

A woman asks her something and for the first time, she takes a deep breath—in tandem with the way you inhale at the same second and finally your head breaks free of the waves. A murmur ripples around the room, and she’s stalling, until eventually her eyes dart around, seeking. And she finds you, right where you’re meant to be.

It’s as if she really had no idea you’d finally show up and briefly, just enough for the two of you, her eyes lock with yours and there’s the tiny upturn of her lips and that way she chews just briefly on her lower lip. You know that look. She’s pleased, she’s grateful. It’s the same as her taking that microphone and screaming at the top of her lungs: _Thank God you’re here!_

Coming back down to land softly, she finds her footing and replies to the question. It doesn’t matter what it’s about because she keeps glancing at you, and every time it happens, you can feel the stretch of your lips grow wider and she mimics it. They’re asking her about what changed everything, as if she hasn’t written long articles about that exact subject a hundred times before. Perhaps it’s different seeing it in reality, what falling in love can do. How fucking powerful it can be because if anybody is a poster child for some transformative bullshit about romance, it’s the Queen of Gilead herself who has essentially turned her back on absolutely everything she’s ever known for it. For Nicole, and for you.

“Simple.” Two syllables bang loudly against the silence and she merely nods in your direction. You want to stand up and argue with her about how it’s not simple at all, about how her love for her children is also part of it, how self-acceptance and love for herself entwined itself in there too. It sure is a lot of responsibility to pin it all on you. Carrying the mantle of “superhero”, or some sort of anti-fascist muse, has never been a particularly desirable title for you.

You just want to exist, free, in this world as it is.

“ _June._ ”

Hell, maybe she’s talking about the month. It’s a pretty time of year, the days are longest and summer is bursting into full expression of vitality. 

No. She’s definitely not talking about the month because she’s said your name in a way that rakes its nails across your skin, that digs into your chest, that sucks your breath right out of every crevice in your lungs, that yanks you out of a hazy dreamscape and throws you abruptly back under the water again. Does anybody else hear that splash?

Her hands are loose around the microphone, with her wedding ring glinting off the harsh spotlight in contrast to her prosthetic, but they may as well be strangling your heart because your chest is so tight, almost like that time you had a panic attack in college. 

This time however, it hurts, except it also feels good. Hot and so good. There’s an elated familiarity in it that you recognise from lazy mornings when you wake up first, ignoring the dirty reality of sleep and pull up close to her in bed; the way she’d groan, half-asleep, as you burrow in to her hair, leaving small kisses along her shoulder. It’s comfortable, natural even, this feeling. It happens so much more often than it used to. Sometimes during sex, and especially after, in that glowing twilight of coming down as you simply touch each other softly, or murmur the nonsense of lovers readjusting to the real world. Sometimes in the evenings, at dinner when you catch her eye. When she’s working and chewing the ends of her pens in that insufferable way she does because she’s trying to quit smoking ( _again_ ), and you pray none of the kids pick up either bad habit. When she’s breastfeeding your son and humming quietly to him, off-key and lazily, because she thinks no one else can hear. When she’s reading them a book, or bickering with Moira, or making you a drink, or any number of things that any normal person would find utterly boring.

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck fuck_.

It’s impossible. Your circumstances bar it from ever being reality, you remind yourself with wavering certainty.

Someone, somewhere in the dimly-lit audience, speaks up, “Was it ever worth it?”  
  
And that is probably what everyone wants to know about Gilead. All that sacrifice and all the suffering, for what? Every single thing she’s been through, can she justify it somehow? Was it worth it?

For a long time, Serena stares blankly into the sea of faces, blinks slowly, gathering her thoughts. There’s a twitch in her face though that tells you she has an answer already but is trying to bite her tongue. Maybe she’s weak today, or rather, just honest.

“For me, what I suffered, yes. She’s worth everything.” The answer seems vague, it could be Nicole after all. But then she stares directly at you and whether they understand or not, you do, and that's all the matters apparently. She doesn’t attempt to justify the rest of her ideology, or Gilead. Only her own pain.

She is saying something else now that you’ve completely missed and there’s suddenly a tempest of applause. People are standing, murmuring, shifting like whitecaps, some are gathering their jackets and leaving. A few are making a beeline to the stage, like students would do in college after a lecture if they had questions. There’s a small line forming as if she’s some sort of celebrity now, and maybe she is, but with nothing more than a polite wave she apologises and promises to be back in a second.

It’s easy to meet her halfway; you’ve been sort of doing that for a while now. There’s no grand, open-mouthed and passionate kiss before the gawking spectators. Simply, her hands grab yours and cling on tightly, and only for a few seconds, far too few.

“Hi,” she whispers, and the second the sound hits your eardrums, it takes everything in your power not to let your knees buckle. Something very, very wrong is happening and you _like_ it. She settles for a short, light kiss on your lips, a brush of flame against them and you suck in air quickly, recognising this is the first time since that impulsive time in the park a year ago, that she’s ever kissed you in public. She tilts her head, eyes soft with a hidden smile. “Thank you for coming.”

Other than a quirk of an eyebrow, you barely react. You know this is not the time for bad jokes or innuendos, although in all honesty, maybe there’s a shadow of truth in it because something strange is happening in your body at the moment, and you squeeze her hands in return, your lips pulling up even further. “Hey.”

The two of you may as well be doing a stripshow, that’s how exposed you feel. But even with all eyes on you, your shoulders roll back a little. She’s _your_ wife. Wife. When did that become the normal way you think of her? So automatically, so naturally? Serena Osborne, as the name says on the poster at her insistence because she wants to be yours, to show off that you chose her, to be owned by you—as much as that would rankle your mother’s feminist ideals. She’s yours and you get to stand beside her as all of this happens for her. A swell of pride, not much different than what you felt in the hospital when you saw Danny in his crib, balloons up. And the fucked up part of it all is that she doesn’t seem to care what’s going on when you’re around. It’s crazy that to some of these people, she’s a god, an idol, a hero… but to her, you’re hers.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the phones pointed at the two of you and suddenly everything comes crashing down. They’re not allowed to have this of you; this wasn’t part of the deal. The way you’re drowning in yourself, and her, right at this second, that’s not for public consumption. It’s not even something you want to share with Gilead’s spies, no matter how much damage is left to be done from this beaten horse.

Is it possessiveness? Are you just feeling shy and anxious? Is it how these people and their camera phones are stripping away your clothes and your skin and recording every second of this overwhelmed vulnerability for the world to gawk at? Your shoulders curl, like a bug found under a rock by curious children and you fall into her slowly, just a little, trying to find the shadow she affords you. The safety she, of all the people in this world, provides for you. 

You would have been perfectly safe at home on the sofa, streaming this on your laptop. But no, you had to come and see it in person. Both kinds of sirens scream into your mind; this is an emergency and yet you can't pull away. You're drawn into her.

If only she could touch you and not have it be seen and owned by others. All you ask is her hand in yours, maybe, or at best the brush of her cheek against yours, or her fingers through your hair, even absently. Your skin aches, your _bones_ ache with the denial of such a basic, natural desire. How fragile and vulnerable it is to be a thing that needs, in a world like this. But posterity wins over your weakness, like it always does. Necessity has always been what you put first, above all else and despite everything.

As a result, all you get is a light hand stroking down your forearm over the wool jacket in a simple gesture of comfort. You've pet dogs with more emotion than she gives you in that moment. It’s placating and juvenile, the same sort of thing you do to Hannah or Nicole when some trivial thing has gone wrong.

You’re swimming up, kicking towards the rippling sparkles of light coming in from above the surface of whatever has sucked you down. 

She breezes away, and back into the waiting crowd but you can’t hear what she’s saying anymore. All you feel is chilly and isolated.

Until she glances back over to you, not just once, or twice, but often. She’s not letting go, and she’s shifting around, easing out of the throng of curious bystanders. She’s nodding, and scribbling, and keeping her responses short until she gives up and pushes out. Her apologies float out over the questions coming at her.

Suddenly your body isn’t aching anymore, and as she sweeps up next to you with the click of her heels on marble, insistent but not furious, you take a deep breath. 

On the way out of the room, she slips her hand into yours, drafting alongside you as you fall into step. It’s vaguely intoxicating to be in her orbit at this point, and it’s an experience you had no idea was possible. It’s spurred by pride, but underlined by a type of covetousness you’d never noticed before. Maybe this is how Fred once felt, until he got drunk from freeloading on that haemorrhaged power. You need to learn the lessons from recent history.

As soon as you’re through the auditorium doors and burst into the fresh air, her hand tightens more and her mouth curves into a huge smile. Before you have the chance to say anything, she’s talking. (Doesn’t she ever get tired of her own voice?) She’s regaling you with anecdotes from the last two hours, grinning ear to ear, motoring through the emotions and experience. 

Fuck, she’s unstoppable and she’s all yours.

There’s the clack of her shoes again, briskly moving over the pavement, just dusting though. She’s high on whatever she got from that speech and you’re merely along for the ride. Which, in all honesty, is fine because your vision swims a little, your ears are ringing, and there’s a heady sort of dizziness that's causing you to feel a loss of breath, short on air and a cloying tightness all over your body. It could be an asthma attack, even though you’ve never had asthma. Maybe it’s the beginning nudges of a panic attack instead? But something about the potent hazy cloud you seem encased in works its way lower, settling warmly in your belly as well as your chest.

You pull on her to follow you into the parking lot to the car but her monologue doesn’t cease. It’s only as you get up to the door that she falls silent, thankfully. It gives you a moment to catch your breath and glance up at her hovering above you, expectant and, well… 

She’s fucking radiant. The pink flush of excitement in her cheeks, the glint of the sun off her hair, and the way her smile reaches the corners of her eyes. It’s there on her face, just for you. No words are coming from her anymore, but you can hear what she’d mumbled to you on the stoop of that Italian restaurant on your wedding night.

 _Oh_.

Most people employ well-trodden idioms like being hit by a tonne of bricks at this point. A light being flicked on. Crashing to earth. Something sudden and violent. But that’s nothing even close to what you’re feeling. You’ve been drifting down for a long time, maybe months. Just one long, quiet freefall through cold, dark, starless sky with no sense of where the ground even was. The air was freezing, laced with ice particles. So endless, and you couldn’t breathe. Hardly pleasant. In fact, it was downright uncomfortable, if not painful. Disorientating, timeless. A dead void with no points of reference except the mere sensation of falling, quickly but not, into some other abyss.

It wasn’t fast; gravity didn’t have that sort of pull on it and whatever laws of mechanics you’d once drilled into your head for AP Physics seem like suggestions rather than nature. More like _sinking_ through air.

You don’t crumple to the hard ground, broken and sore when it finally hits. Instead, even without seeing the end, your feet land softly, upright, as if you’d been expecting it the entire time and finally you can come to rest. Much like spending all day on a boat, the solid ground wobbles—or rather you do, uncertain how to adjust to this new reality immediately. It’s all there, patiently waiting for your body to catch up to it.

Falling hard and fast is such a terrible metaphor, you’re surprised that it caught on as it has. Perhaps it’s the inevitability that scares people, and makes them writhe in helplessness or maybe it’s how predictable the whole trajectory is. Inevitable.

When a marathon ends, how many people really trip over the finish line, skinning their hands and knees, bloody, panicked, and cursing the gods?

What she said the night on the steps, it echoes in your own head, in your own voice floating outwards instead of sucking hers in. It had taken so long to claw and burrow its way out from under years of torture and pain and doubt but there it is, startling you with its urgency. It’s still hard to say the exact words, and you’ll be damned if you’ll ever say them aloud to anybody, let alone yourself, but you can hear it all the same.

_Goddammit._

* * *

That night, still on a high from the day’s events, Serena corners you in the bedroom after Danny is asleep, slowly looking over your body. You can feel the tingle sweep up from your toes, settling deep in your belly, followed then by a deep pink flush over your cheeks. If the slight part of her lips and that determined look in her eyes is any indication, you're about to be thoroughly taken care of. 

_Finally_.

But of course Serena doesn’t make it easy.

“I’m surprised you got over yourself enough to come today.”

Ignoring the double entendre you could make from her words, you grit your teeth at her veiled and entirely predictable insult. Perhaps it’s her way of complimenting you. She has particularly strange and obscure ways of showing gratitude that you’ve learnt to carefully decipher with time. 

“The devil tried to swallow me, but God spat me back out, I guess.” You smirk. “To put it a way you'd understand.” Like poking a bear, you wonder if she’s going to concern herself with the analogy, whether she’ll feign offense that you’ve just claimed God and Satan are the same thing.

Briefly, it seems like she will. The silence draws out, long and tense, like an elastic band being stretched between your fingers, or a game of cat’s cradle. Which corners will she pluck and twist? Her expression remains stony until there is the tiniest twitch in her cheeks, pulling at her lips. That’s all the permission you require to pass her back that smile, as brassy as you dare while you’re still tiptoeing on imaginary eggshells. 

“Well, that’s lucky.” 

Fuck, and it’s exactly the way you remember her saying that the first time, except her mouth seems even more inviting now, with that knowing smirk. With three small words, your entire body lights up like a Christmas tree on fire. Crossing the room to suck the breath right out of her lungs hadn’t even been a fleeting whisper of a thought back then, but you can do it now and it’s all you want to do.

She beats you to it, of course, and you realise maybe she’s the devil instead, because your soul exists somewhere between your bodies now, loosely tangled in her possession.

"Want to try for baby number four?" She may be joking, a rare enough experience as it is with that sly twist of her lips, but her voice is tight, gravelly and low, and her fists have already grabbed handfuls of your loose top. It's as if she still thinks you're about to run away. Between the fight, the baby, the book launch, and how insane life has been even in-between, you've barely had time for each other. As if you're going to let this rare opportunity slip from your grasp; frankly, you've had enough of your own fingers at this point. Your body thrums excessively with the possibility of her touching you instead, and there's no doubt you're already slick. The mere suggestion of her mouth or hands on your bare skin, of her inside you, is all it takes. (For a brief moment, you realise this is actually makeup sex, from that horrible time before Danny was even born and somehow that makes Serena's desperation and nervousness more understandable, and a bit endearing.)

A groan escapes between the wet sound of sloppy but fervid kisses, and you twist your hands into her loose hair, pressing against her strong frame, feeling every curve almost as if it's that first time in Gilead, when you were rutting like rabid, wild animals on your crappy single bed with her frantic longing drowning and choking you. You scratch at her until you brusquely drag her t-shirt over her head, as a thrill of electricity snaps through your body when you realise she doesn’t self-consciously attempt to cover her c-section scar and still reddened stretch marks as she’s done almost every time you’ve seen her naked since Daniel was born. She’s too distracted by you to care now. Instead, her mouth comes down hard against your neck and the top of your breasts as soon as she pushes your bathrobe off your shoulders. The smallest yelp sneaks out of her as you grapple her lips back to yours. Her skin around her waist is so warm under your palms as your fingers stumble lust-drunkenly towards her bra clasp. You’re quickly losing the ability to think with any precision.

"Fuck," is the only response that you can utter before finding yourself pushed up hard against the wardrobe with a heavy thud and her mouth on yours. 

A better woman than you may be ashamed at how much you're panting and moaning, how your body is alight with want, how wet you become at the sound of her labored breathing in your ear and the slide of her hot mouth on your neck, how much it turns you on to be tossed against the door with such fervor, how your greedy hands are clawing at ribbon holding her pajama pants up until she's fully exposed to you, until your hands can smooth over her curves. It's a good thing you've never been that innocent or pure a woman because this feels so much better than it should.

"Why stop at four?" You manage to eke out between hard, ravenous kisses from your wife with a grin as she pulls your tank top over your head. It's been over eight months since you've had this with her in any way at all, and as she pushes your cotton boxers down, you immediately pull at her hips, grinding her thigh against you for any sort of release you can find. Her weight slams you tightly against the door and you barely notice the way your back bounces off the soft wood because you exist not for thinking but doing. Her hands are impatient as she grabs at your thighs and pushes them apart further, just enough so that when she falls to her knees in front of you, there is no impediment to her access. 

Oh God, she’s there, kneeling prostrate and devout, head bowed as if in prayer, running her mouth up your trembling thighs from your knee to the damp heat between your legs. And that’s when she finally breathes deeply again, savouring, and you use every last ounce of willpower in your body not to jerk into her face for relief. Instead, you feel helpless to restrain the whining wordless plea that erupts from your lungs, or lower. 

Despite her Christ-like demeanour, there is nothing gentle nor kind about the way she presses her mouth against you, or the way her tongue sweeps out and flattens hard against your swollen slit. This time you can’t resist the buck of your hips to get her to where you need her. And the pressure, you need—fuck, the _pressure_. 

And you’re certainly not polite about the inevitable way you must be dripping down her face. The pads of her fingers press firmly into your legs, holding you fast in place as she sucks and licks your clit until you are actually sobbing with the stress of remaining upright when all you want to do is collapse with pleasure. Behind your eyelids, colours flash, blinding almost and you toss your head back, forgetting there is a solid door there.

For a moment, all this euphoria she’s inspired jumps away as pain sears through your skull when it makes contact with the wood. More lights, flashing, blinking, swirling. There’s blonde hair between your fingers and tangled up in the fist you’re making, tugging on her. Probably too hard but you’d momentarily forgotten.

Forgotten what? That she can feel pain too. Your name, yeah, you’d forgotten that too, and where you are, and everything else in the world other than the prone woman with her tongue lapping deftly between your legs. It’s not rough exactly, but she is firmly herself in all she does: demanding and uncompromising. Insistent that you lose yourself to her, that she alone makes you into an incoherent mess, that you want for nobody else ever.

Well, that last one is probably already true, breathtaking sex or not. 

“Serena,” is all you can gasp out at the moment. It’s all too much. Her hand slithers up, firmly, and her fingers splayed wide over your stomach, holding you up and against the door. Her plain white gold wedding ring glints in the dim light right there, beside your belly button. Her palm is sweaty, or perhaps that’s you.

A hum, or maybe a moan, vibrates through you from her throat and eats its way into your body. Your vision swims again with the feeling and you hang onto her and the handle of the door behind you for dear life. There is no denying the way your legs are shaking now, terribly weak as she refuses to let you rest, refuses to grant you any form of relief whatsoever. Soon, your breathing shatters, coming out in erratic, gulping sounds. Much like suffering probably, if you had any capacity left in which to process that at all. 

With a cold rush, she backs away and you actually whine at the loss. So close. Her lips are red and her whole chin glistens, but she glances in concern at you and allows you a little respite to catch your breath. Fuck, you need more so you yank her up, pull her in and practically smash your lips to hers, tasting all of your arousal in her mouth. She’s whimpering now instead of you as your tongue pushes inside.

Gone is the apostolic vision that was on her knees before you. Now, she’s fury and thunder as she takes your shoulders firmly, pulling you towards her closer, and then nudging you back towards the bed.

 _Yes, the bed_ , your body sighs with relief as you pull her with you onto the soft mattress. Every nerve throbs with the knowledge she is about to fuck you to within an inch of your life. She takes no offense as you forcefully urge her head back down to finish the prayer she’s started.

* * *

There’s a strange familiarity in the ache of your muscles as you slowly come into a gentle consciousness again. Your legs are sore, your wrist limp, your neck a little cramped. There are probably bruises on your thighs and your lips, maybe your neck or breast. It was like years ago, when you couldn’t fucking stop, when you couldn’t get enough of her taste and her whimpers and her scent and her skin on yours. Her mouth on yours. Her body against yours, covered with saliva and sweat and come, writhing together for hours on end, entwined and shamelessly devouring each other, fucking until you could no longer remember your own names. 

You’re sore _everywhere_ , you realise as you move to push your leg between hers. She groans in her sleep and you can’t help the stupid smile that pulls at your lips. Every place where your body touches her is still warm and sticky with leftovers from last night. Slowly, your lips brush across her shoulder, tasting the dried salt on her skin and again she growls, half-heartedly and tugs at your roving hand to pull it over her waist as you spoon behind her. 

That was supposed to be it, but you feel her hum as she doesn’t let go of your hand and instead puppets it across her stomach, lower, until she pushes your fingers into the soft curls between her legs. 

“God, Serena, are you kidding?” you sigh, with only a hint of exhaustion. It’s not that you’re opposed to this, and her insatiability is echoed in your bones, but you’re not sure your body can handle much more, especially not without waking up fully first. 

There’s no complaining about the numerous orgasms that shattered your body with ecstasy last night, nor the way you fucked each other senselessly raw for hours, made her scream your name despite a full household, and the way suddenly sex felt like something so much more than it was before. Maybe that’s what eight months without it does to a person. Maybe that’s what admitting the truth to yourself allows it to finally become.

Whatever the reasons, love or not, there’s a building drum in your chest, faster and harder as she directs your fingers deeper, feeling how wet she is already. What kind of dreams was she just having? 

You realise it doesn’t matter as her grip tightens on your wrist and her hips rock, just a little against your nimble hand. Her breath hitches, interrupting the slowly building heaving. What a glutton. She’s all of the seven deadly sins at once. Something coils in your belly and you can't help the way your nipples harden where they’re pressed to her bare skin. She barely has to do more than want you for your body to explode with an echoing desire almost immediately.

“June,” she pants, the word catching on a strangled cry. Your fingers know exactly what she needs.

“You’re ridiculous,” you rasp out against her neck and there’s the jostle of her light laughter in response. It’s amazing how it doesn’t interrupt the rhythm of her body and yours, together. “You know that, right?”

The four hours of sleep you’d shared seems too short, but also oddly too long as well, as if it was merely a pause in the conversation rather than an end to it. You’ve fallen back into her so easily again, feeling your blood rise and the turbid surge of heat feathering along your spine and up your thighs. Electricity settles deftly between your legs, and just like that, you want her so badly all over again, aching and yearning. 

She must sense the quickening of your pulse and the impatient movement of you behind her because her hips buck, desperately against your fingers as her clit swells more. Your throat is dry and your breath is gasping against her skin as she moans your name so quietly into the pillow. 

She's making up for three decades of missing this sort of organic pleasure, you tell yourself about her ravenous appetite for sex with you. She's never been properly content, nor satisfied until you, nor was she even acknowledged with men. But what's your excuse for this wild insatiability? You've never been some repressed lesbian, desperate for human contact. You were perfectly content once upon a time. (Weren’t you?)

Your mind stumbles over the underlying reason for your reaction to her specifically, so you push it aside, focusing more on making your wife come so hard she leaves a puddle on the sheets, again. 

God, she's so wet. She always is, and you remember the time, it was in Gilead one of the first nights you ever were together and the face she'd made afterwards at the large wet spot on her bed. And it was _wet_. Not just a little damp. Soaking. From both of you, really.

 _I didn't realise this was so wet_ , she had said, with a whisper of awe and confusion, slowly placing her palm flat against the damp spot she’d made. And you know she had meant sex with women, but surely she should have known it works both ways, or it should. You recall the wave of unbidden pity you had felt knowing Serena Joy Waterford had likely never been particularly turned on in her life. Maybe in her mind she had been, by various romantic ideals and roles she was playing, but never by the very act itself nor the partner. She'd lived over thirty years thinking what she had was just normal, how it should be. Maybe if she was lucky she got slightly moist, performing her rote function of reproduction and womanhood. Lie back and think of Gilead. Or something. You had wondered then if Fred had ever even made her come.

Part of you knows he probably wasn't the type to even know. All he had cared about with you was the simulation, the pantomime of the act, the pure theatrics of your pleasure with his overwhelming manhood. But then, other times, you doubted if he cared whether you were even awake or asleep, alive or dead. 

Serena keens like a cat in heat as you touch her, responsive and wild as you groan at the way your fingers slide so easily against her.

From this angle, you touch her like you’ve touched yourself a hundred times, paying attention almost solely to the bundle of oversensitive nerves that define her pleasure. Soft knuckles rubbing, she groans and props her leg up, spreading wider and more wantonly for you. It's not the most comfortable of positions but she doesn’t appear to notice at all as short, whimpering noises escape her throat in quiet pleas for your mercy. Pausing just for a moment you shift your weight, as your own body begs for similar attention, not just from this but the memories of last night swarming behind your eyelids. The sight of her spread open for you, her smell in your nose, on your fingers and tongue, your mouth pressed into hot, wet heat and voraciously drinking her in as if you’d never get enough, her fingers curled inside you, every single sound she makes, the trembling heat bursting as she came and you came, her lips against yours. You’re so fucking turned on by her already and it makes no sense to your rational mind; then again, it _never_ has.

Your left hand isn't the most capable tool, as pinched as your arm is, but it'll have to do for the time being as you awkwardly slip your fingers against your own slit, whimpering with need, anything to ease the pressing want of your own. She must recognize what you're doing because a guttural moan bellows up from her before morphing into a weak, desperate cry. There's no doubt she can feel the rhythmic bump of your hand as it moves through your own folds, just as your right hand is doing to her.

The fingers around your wrist are hanging on for dear life now. 

"You're going to be the death of me," she chokes out between gulps of air. 

Your lips curve into a devilish smile against her shoulder blades and your voice escapes hoarsely. "Promise?"

Without warning she yanks you on top of her, and your fingers immediately find their way back between her legs. This time with a better angle, and you plunge so easily inside her as she arches up against you with a pathetic moan. She grinds and thrusts against your palm, seeking pressure and release as you lavish all your mouth’s extra attention on her tits, licking, sucking, biting just enough. Oh God, you want to fuck yourself along with this but your concentration and balance are both too precarious.

Not long after you drag your mouth across the pulsing skin of her neck with your fingers finding that slightly rough patch inside her, her entire body seizes. She’s actually crying as she comes, hard, loud, and fast, clenching around your fingers, drenching your hand. And the bedsheets. It's over far too quickly for your liking, and you realise somewhere along the way you’d completely ignored yourself in the process of awe at her in the throes of g-spot ecstasy. 

The way she can barely form words is reward enough. The glossy come coating your hand, and the way she is shuddering and gulping for breath spikes your own arousal even as she jerks away from you, clearly far too over-sensitive to even the gentlest touch.

Time slows, like the dripping of a faucet running dry. Slower and slower, drip, drip… drop. The heaving of her chest evens out and eventually she sighs with contentment. 

For a brief moment after you roll off her, you actually believe she’s going to drift back to sleep, but within seconds after that thought, she’s pulled away and straddled your hips, hovering above you, all wild blonde hair and flushed, damp skin and shining blue eyes. Your very own Medusa, hypnotizing you and turning you to stone under her naked body, your hands free by your sides once more.

Until she trails a finger down, over your nipple and it tightens even more as your eyes glaze over, taking in her arms and breasts and, _oh God_ , _everything_. You bite down on your own lip, knowing with any luck and considering how much you’ve pushed that luck already, Daniel is going to wake up screaming to be changed just as you get Serena where you want her—where you need her. Untamed and unabashed, her eyes gleam in the dimness of a pink sunrise outside and her lips shift into a predatory grin. Fuck, you can feel the seeping moisture from her recent orgasm on your belly as she rests on you and a flush sweeps through your veins at the thought.

She throws her head back, her back arching just a little as you suck in a sharp breath with the glorious sight of her naked body, scars and all, and pulls her tangled hair into a ponytail with the elastic off her wrist. Immediately, you can feel the clench of anticipation between your legs. 

"I guarantee we both have terrible morning breath," she begins, as a perfect way to spoil the mood in true Serena Joy fashion. "But lucky for you, it doesn't matter."

She's thrown herself down the bed and settled between your thighs before you can even process what's happening and as sensitive as you are from the previous night’s attention, you still feel the throb of need as she kisses up the inside of your thigh, softly and slowly.

As her lips meet your folds, her tongue testing the sensitivity of your clit, you're struck with her delicacy. She's not rushing or pushing; she's incredibly careful. Something about the gentility of her eating you out this way causes a tickle of heat to build in your eyes. She cares. 

Well, of course she does, you manage to scold yourself amidst all the overwhelming feelings cascading over you. But this unnamed emotion hits harder than you expected. With a brisk wipe, you try to clear away the potential tears. 

Unlike last night, she’s meticulous and slow, exploring each dip and fold like it’s her first time down there, bringing you up inch by excruciating inch. Maybe it would be teasing if it didn’t feel like exactly what you need right now. Tenderness. Worship. Your hungry wife languidly savouring every bit of you she can get. You would easily stay here all day long with her, even though you know soon enough the pressure is going to rebuild again and you’ll need more than her slow, wet caresses. 

Fuck, it feels so good as she incrementally increases her pressure. Such a subtle slide up the rungs of your own arousal. Before you realise it, you've spread wider for her and pushed into her mouth, your hand reaching down, finding hers and clenching it tightly. It still sometimes feels jarring how she’s missing fingers, yet the wedding band is tight on her remaining knuckle. But you hold on, linking your fingers together as best you can. She squeezes in response, at the same moment she swipes her tongue right over your clit with a strong stroke. 

Everything in your periphery blurs, tunnelling down to the softly blossoming warmth inside your abdomen. Your cry is brief but loud. It makes your heart race too, and your ears fill with cotton. You know you’re panting and whining, high-pitched probably in short bursts as she works you higher and coils you tighter with every flick. There’s a faint shiver down your legs, all the way to your curled toes and sweeping back up again as she pulls even more from you, while you can’t let her go. You should have guessed it would be a morning like this after waking up naked and curled around her. 

" _Please_." It’s the only intelligible sound that manages to make it past your lips as she slides a deft finger then two inside you, careful and precise, giving you exactly what you’re craving and not anything more, nothing too much. It’s effortless and slick, you’re so incredibly ready for her. You know she’s only touching you in a few places, and you can pinpoint those spots but somehow it feels like everywhere at the same time. She’s inside you and around you, filling you, and every cell of your body is singing, _Please._

 _Please, Serena. Please don’t stop, please I need you, please make me come_. 

And she does. With her mouth and fingers and shameless moaning breaths against your skin, you see stars on the ceiling as your body blooms hotly once again, bursting forth. You’re her garden. All those months in Gilead you’d watched her fuss over her plants and her greenhouse, you’d thought that was her calling. No, it’s all too clear that her most natural passion, her raison d’etre is something even more primal. Serena Joy was put on this earth to love—actually, _pleasure_ women. Or, you at the very least. There is nothing she is better suited for with those perfect hands and sharp tongue. Nothing will ever compare, and you can’t even fathom entertaining the idea of being fucked by anybody else on the planet ever again.

By the time you feel yourself coming down from the tingle in your toes, the slight chill in the air is sprinkling goosebumps across your dampened skin and you reluctantly let go of her hand. She’s peppering more soft, slow kisses along the inside of your thighs, idly working her way around to your belly button. It’s _devotion_ , you think. And you want to hang onto that feeling for the rest of your life.

So, you almost do it. 

You almost let the words slip out. Something inside of you clings onto them though, as if you’re still not sure, or you don’t know if you can trust yourself with them yet. Perhaps you can’t trust her with what it all means.

Instead, you offer a sigh and grab for her, your hands feeling empty without her. If you can have five more minutes just to lie with her in the quiet like this in her arms, you'll be happy. Just five minutes. 

You get thirty seconds to lounge in the afterglow, dazed and grinning against her shoulder and feel her fingers combing gently through your hair. Thirty whole seconds.

A knock startles you both, and wakes the baby at the same time. Danny's crying in his crib and Serena's cursing under her breath and you're just annoyed that everything has to crash down so soon. 

Moira doesn't wait for acknowledgement and as she cracks the door open, you both scramble under the covers. There is literally no question what you'd just been doing and the look on her face proves it. She rolls her eyes at you and your flushed face, messy hair, and still heaving chest, and then pins Serena to the wall with a pointed glare. 

"There's someone here for you."

Glancing at the clock, her brow creases and she looks to you for answers, as if suddenly you're aware of everyone who could possibly come calling at what basically amounts to sunrise. "Who?"

Moira shrugs carelessly. "Says she's from Gilead. You gonna put on some clothes or what?"

There's a particular way Serena huffs and rolls her eyes around Moira, and at this point, you've given up wishing for it to stop. It's never going to end; they will be sworn enemies and reluctant allies for life.

"I'll go," you offer. Nodding towards your wife, you sit up and hold the bed sheets to your chest. "You get showered and I'll keep them—and Dan—occupied. It must be important."


	13. no children, no police, no wife

It turns out, it is important because the face you see as you wander into the living room with a clean-diapered Danny in your arms is a blast from your past. Specifically a past that you thought had died sometime between the time you left the Waterfords and the last year or so. For a second, you freeze, reassessing reality and trying to figure out whether everything that has just happened in the last hour or so is still part of a dream you’re having. Danny yanks hard on your hair, so much that it stings and sends a shrieking bolt of pain right across your scalp.

Nope, not a dream. As you maneuver him on your hip to unlatch his chubby little fingers from your tangled hair, you finally catch her eye.

She seems as shocked to see you as you are to see her.

“June?” she asks, as if you’re a figment of her imagination too. Maybe you look like a nightmare, maybe that’s what’s happening. 

“Hi.” It’s all you can find to say at the moment. It's all the air you can afford to let go of since it feels as if you're all in a vacuum.

How is she not dead? You were convinced she was dead, gone forever. Everyone was told she was dead. In fairness, you’d never seen her name on those lists Gilead released, partly because those seemed to start being leaked with greater frequency only when it was to get back at Serena for her articles. Could they all be false, put out by a manipulative propaganda machine? Surely Gilead wouldn’t consider that particularly evil. Falsify some death records. No biggie. It hadn't occurred to any of you that those lists could be lies, because the capacity for mass murder was simply a given.

But Gilead was not solely built on force. The psychological torture had always been even worse, more delicate and effective. In its own way, more deadly.

A budding warmth tugs at the corners of your eyes and you can’t wait. Even with the baby in your arms, you take her as best you can into an embrace, hoping you don’t stink like sweat and sex too much. And you cry, just a little. She’s not dressed in her usual dull greens and greys, but she’s not exactly dressed like a free woman either. It’s some weird inbetween that makes you more uncomfortable than if she was straight up clothed as a Martha still. It’s like politically-correct fascism, or something. Like she's not free, but trying to fool Canadians into thinking she is.

“I can’t believe you’re alive,” you finally whisper as you sit down opposite her. “Oh my God, Rita. I thought you...”

Her eyes are misty too, and her skin a little flushed. She seems genuinely happy to see you. She keeps glancing at the baby in your arms, trying to make sense of what’s happening. You’re alive, with a new child and a wedding ring on your finger. Does she know? How could she not? Doesn’t everybody? Surely, with all the material Serena has put out and what has slipped through the cracks in Gilead’s fortifications, there would have been whispers and rumours at the very least. And Rita was always one step ahead of everyone else you knew.

Almost as if she’s reading your mind, she smiles sadly at Danny. “They’ve really cracked down on the underground. I don’t know how, but it’s nothing like it used to be.” She doesn’t go into details about how the government managed to squash one of the most robust and complex rebel networks. You’d seen and heard enough from other survivors here about the lengths men will go to in other districts to silence any woman. “I’m glad you got out when you did.”

Part of you wonders if yours and Serena’s escape was part of the motive for the crackdown. If before, the underground had been merely a sort of inconvenience in the overall scheme of things, something that allowed a few unimportant women to cross over to Canada. But Serena defecting, such a high-ranking, outspoken figure and so dramatically at that, had caused them to reassess how powerful Mayday was.

You’ll never understand the motives of men, especially those in Gilead. 

All you can do is nod at Rita while Danny squirms in your arms momentarily and you rearrange him on your lap, searching for something else to say to her. 

A thoughtful silence falls over you two in the living room. It's so early the other kids aren't even awake yet. Why is she here at this time? What could be so important and why is she perched as if she can't stay for long?

Finally, she sighs. "You look good. I'm happy you've picked back up with your life." Her eyes flick down to the wedding band on your finger and then again to the baby in your arms. Her brow creases just a little as she looks at him, but she forces out a smile. "You and your husband—sorry, was his name Luke?—must be happy."

Jesus Christ. She can remember your husband’s name, but has no idea about you and Serena. Before you have the chance to gently break the news, she continues.

"Pretty surprised you and Mrs. Waterford can live under the same roof."

"Rita," you begin softly, and a little reluctantly. You know she suspected something about you and Serena in Gilead. She always knew _everything_ , didn’t she? Maybe not the extent of it, of how much energy you expended on Serena, of how often she sought out your body and your words, how you fucked each other, wildly, almost nightly, in some way or another. You could excuse the Commander’s almost willful ignorance, but Rita always seemed so much more aware, more vigilant. 

Once, she’d walked into your bedroom, too early one morning, and found Serena tucked in your bed. Fully clothed, of course, but fast asleep beside you. You can still remember the sound of the doorknob unlatching, the creak of the hinges, and the way your entire body had tensed in sheer terror with Serena next to you, her hand clutching at your nightgown underneath the flimsy sheets even in sleep. For a brief second, Rita had done nothing but stare, mouth agape, at the mistress of the household in bed with the Handmaid, both of you clearly comfortable, hair loose and free as your blood ran cold, chilled. When Serena began to stir, surely feeling the rigid shape of your once warm and comfortable body, Rita nodded to you and slid out the room as quietly as she came.

Surely Rita hadn't confused that with some sort of desperate, clingy friendship? Or maybe she did, which is even more strange and awkward when you think about it. 

Perhaps it's just her wishful thinking for a fairytale ending for you and Luke, and not the ending that riles every single other person you know into a fitful rage. 

“How’s Nicole?” Her voice is so expectant, so full of tentative hope. 

A slow smile creeps over your lips at the thought of your daughter, up there in her big girl bed with the other kids. “She’s good. She’s really good.” There’s a thump from upstairs that could either be one of the kids, or Serena’s tripped over her own discarded clothes—again. You’ve told her a hundred times to pick up her dirty laundry but she has some sort of warped mental block when it comes to that specifically. God forbid you leave a dirty plate on the table though. All Hell breaks loose. Maybe something flashes across your face as you think about this, because Rita is regarding you with a slightly arched brow, curiously.

“And who’s this then?” she grins, reaching a finger out to play with Danny who grabs on immediately.

Your smile beams out again as you press your nose to your son’s fuzzy soft head and inhale deeply. “This is the newest Osborne, Danny.” There’s always an air of pride when you talk about your kids, and no one would know he’s not biologically yours. The way you feel about him is exactly as deep as your girls and unless you’re in a strangely awkward situation like this, you rarely ever even think about how genetics have nothing to do with love. He’s just your son, and that’s it. 

“Hey there, lil man,” Rita coos, and her smile cracks wide open as Danny lights up from her attention.

Right before you open your mouth to ask about her life, about how and why she’s here in your living room, why she’s looking specifically for your wife, there are footsteps coming down the wooden stairs. You both turn to look at who has interrupted the reunion, and for a second, Serena seems as if she’s going to pass out, or turn and run. Fight or flight, Serena, which will it be this time?

After a beat, she moves towards the sofa and perches herself close to you, so close that your thighs are touching. She always likes to do that, as if when she can’t physically feel you, she’s weak. Danny starts babbling and reaching for her, grabbing at your t-shirt in his impatience. A piercing whine punctuates the awkward silence of Serena and Rita staring at each other in something resembling shock. He wants his other mama, not you, and Serena unfreezes herself for long enough to take her son into her arms and he quiets almost immediately.

Somebody should say something. God, it’s fucking weird. But all you can do is watch Rita slowly figuring out how all these pieces fit with each other. Why Serena and you are both in this house, why your son apparently looks nothing like the husband you’d told her all about, why this baby looks more like Serena than anybody else, why you were the one holding him, why he has your name, why you’re sitting so close. Her gaze falls again to your left hand, the ring looped around your finger, and then darts to Serena’s mutilated hands, and the delicate ring there too. Rita knows enough about Serena to guess that it’s not Fred’s oppressive band of gold. 

The tension wraps slowly around the silence, and there’s a twitch of Rita’s face as she tilts her head to the side, staring at the baby as Serena stares at her. Finally, Rita looks up, choosing to say nothing about the confusion lying atop the lack of conversation.

It's probably just a force of habit. "Hello, Mrs. Waterford,” she begins and Serena visibly shudders in a way you haven’t seen in a long time. There’s a precise moment you can pick out as you watch her shoulders tense and her teeth clench. It's a horrible sound, that screech and squeal of rusty car brakes.

"Please, Rita," Serena manages to grind out, her grip flexing on Danny's loose pajamas. "That formality is unnecessary." 

You notice—with both an air of curiosity and a strange hint of annoyance—that she doesn't correct the facts, just the way it’s said. It's funny how jealous and uncomfortable it makes you, considering how long you'd found it off-putting and embarrassing when she wouldn’t stop calling herself Mrs. Osborne. Now you're flat out insulted that in front of strangers she has no qualms, but with Rita, she's avoidant.

There’s something that Serena always brings out of you that you’ve never had before, and one of those terrible habits is the need to make her pay for all her careless or outright callous behaviour. When just a moment ago, you’d been reluctant to dump such a cold surprise on Rita, now in order to make Serena squirm for that last comment, you’re ready.

“It would be _Mrs. Osborne_ now,” you declare, with a smirk that feels exceptionally good.

Glancing at her, you watch eyes slip shut in irritation and she huffs out a quiet sigh, but more importantly, Rita is trying exceptionally hard not to make her shock more obvious. Her mouth snaps closed but there’s no mistaking the concerned flicker in her eyes. You’d seen it enough over the years to recognise the panicked flash.

“I don’t understand.” At least she’s honest. Most other people just smile uncomfortably, nod, and pretend they get it.

Maybe it’s to one-up you, as is her style, or maybe she’s being genuine, but she doesn’t quite react in the same way you’d expected. With one arm, she holds her son on her lap, and the other hand slides out and rests on your leg. In the open. So many times before she’s hidden this exact gesture. 

Rita stares at the hand on your leg, then squints back at her and at you. “Why?”

You shrug while Serena stiffens. Is now the time to be honest? What would happen if you let anything slip, all the words that have lodged themselves so deeply inside you, with the barbs of fear latched into every crevice. You wonder if you should mention how much you care about her, how much better you sleep when she’s next to you, how you become breathless at the mere thought of her sometimes. Should Rita know that Serena loves you and has said the words aloud? Whatever conflict you’re having about the extent of information you need to share evaporates as Serena speaks.

“To protect the children. That is all.” Her voice is oddly cold. She’s holding it steady and detached. She’s doing it for you, you realise, because she can tell you’re not ready. It’s one thing to see a stranger and talk about your marriage, because they don’t know you and you don’t know them. But this excuse? It saves both you and Serena any further explanation, and keeps what you have completely secret. Honesty is overrated anyway, even when it feels like hiding it is physically bruising. Serena removes her hand and you’re left with a lonely, cold spot on your thigh. Empty. Like a part of you is suddenly missing.

For a second, you are plainly aware Rita isn’t buying it. It’s difficult to tell how much she knows about your life here. She’s seeing you two in your bed in Gilead, she’s putting pieces together, she’s not a stupid woman. But Daniel gurgles again and she loses the thread. “That’s good,” she mumbles, staring at your son.

“Why are you here?” Serena’s voice is still chilly, and you’re not certain why. It’s not as if Rita has done anything wrong but you suppose that’s just how Serena is on a normal basis, and perhaps you've just become accustomed to her brusque tone. Being around Rita however makes you suddenly more aware.

Rita fidgets in her seat and folds her hands dutifully, like a good Martha should. “I didn’t know June would be here,” she begins. “I didn’t know you two…” Her voice trails off and she flinches before setting her mouth in a glum line. “Commander Waterford is here. He sent me to see you.”

The words fall like an avalanche and suddenly you’re deaf, suffocating under the snow. Next to you, Serena must feel the same. They are words you never wanted to hear. A disaster.

“What for?” It is truly amazing how well Serena keeps her composure when she wants to.

“A driver is outside,” Rita continues quickly. “He’s waiting for us. The Commander wants to see you. He says he has a peace offering.” She knocks out each sentence like one bullet after another.

Fred Waterford is in Canada and nobody knew? Or just nobody thought to inform his defected ex-wife and ex-sex slave? Fuck, they have sexual offender registries for everyone else, could the government not have one for him? And he’s waiting, at some undisclosed locale, and there’s no point in asking Rita since she doesn’t know Toronto at all. He’s waiting for Serena and Rita.

A twinge of relief makes you feel guilty because your name isn’t mentioned alongside hers; he doesn’t care about you anymore. Hannah is safe, Nicole is safe. Presumably Danny is safe too. Everyone in this house is safe, except Serena. Fred never wants something for nothing. There is always some seedy pay-off that he’s waiting to lord over someone’s head. What it could be now that he desires from Serena specifically, with this peace offering bullshit, you can’t even begin to imagine.

A tiny part of you is worried still that the Serena you know now will give in, be weak, revert right back to the woman she was before. It’s a nightmare to consider how she still has the potential to rip Nicole and Danny away, spirit them all back to Gilead for the right number of silver pieces. Whatever promises Fred can make, you can only pray yours are worth more to her. Sometimes, you can’t be sure. And that kills you.

She bites her lip for a moment. “He’s not getting my kids.” She’s firm on that at least and it gives you a slight burst of hope. After all, this disaster marriage was entirely predicated on this very scenario.

“I don’t know what he wants. Except to meet with you. Alone. No children, no police, no...” She glances at you. “...wife.”

“No.”

Rita winces. If she’s unsuccessful in getting Serena to agree, she’s the one who will be punished, because it's unlikely that there aren't undercover Guardians posted around your house right now, making sure Rita doesn't run. Untucking a piece of paper from her pocket, she hands it over with a tremble to her hand that you've never seen before. “This is the address.”

You know the place. It’s a small diner down on Queen Street, so at least it’s not some hotel room or private nook. It’s public enough, and there are always people eating there. Before you can stop yourself, you hear someone speaking—and it’s you. “You should go. See what he wants.”

Rita looks hopeful; Serena looks scandalized. “June…” Her voice is so low, so threatening. Rita seems to flinch, but more so at the novelty of hearing Serena use your name, rather than the very familiar tone.

“It’s Bunny’s,” you say, as if the specific restaurant makes any difference at all. Nothing bad could ever possibly happen at Bunny’s. Not with all those rabbit paintings on the walls. Who could be cruel in such a place?

“Frankly, June, I couldn’t care less if he’s taking me to the moon. I’m not interested in anything he has to offer.” 

When you catch her stare, there’s something in her eyes, very thoughtful if not sad. It almost says, _Why would I need anything he can give me when I already have this?_

Imaginary Serena Voice is right though. Why would she need anything else? She has her children, a house to live in, a fulfilling job, the freedom to read and write, and love—or so she claims. You’re inclined to believe her. What could Fred ever offer that is more than that? You know for certain there is literally nothing he could hand you that you need or want anymore. He has no power here. So, really, what’s the harm? It could even be fun.

You’re surprised Serena doesn’t want to rub it in his pathetic, hairy baboon-face what a great life she has now, how happy she is, the fact she has two children without him (three if you count Hannah). You can still remember a woman who would have leapt at that chance. Hell, she’s the same woman who started off here writing scathing op-eds about precisely that sort of thing, specifically to get back to Gilead and piss off the Commander. She wrote a book. And that goddamn magazine cover, for another thing. That was pretty damn incendiary and while she may have had some more virtuous motives, there was definitely something about it that screamed, “Fuck you, Fred.” right across the cover in a big violet font.

You shrug, trying valiantly to ignore her imploring gaze and keep your voice light. “It could be fun.”

Yes, June, you idiot. Meeting up with her cheating, rapist, abusive ex-husband who is also an internationally known war criminal of a fascist country sounds like a wonderful picnic. What a jolly time everyone would have. 

It sounds really stupid now that you’ve said it out loud.

Daniel squirms and cries in her arms, and she stands up with him, barely looking at you. “Well, I’m going back to bed.”

No, she isn’t. She’s avoiding dealing with this. Fred isn’t just going to disappear because she doesn’t feel like having Sunday brunch with him. 

Escaping will not be an option this time. She’s too slippery, too serpentine in situations like this, and you better than anybody know that if you don’t grab her tightly by the throat, she’ll squirm away. 

“No, Serena, you’re not.” The hard edge of threat in your voice seems to make Serena actually stumble in her mission. Even Rita’s eyes go wide with the biting contempt in your tone, and probably the way Serena obeys you immediately. Gilead June may have once in a blue moon spoken to Fred or Nick like this, but never Serena. You’d preferred saccharine, sarcastic insolence and straight up yelling for her.

If she had a tail, it would be between her legs right now. In fact, you’d go so far as to say the big blue puppy dog eyes she’s giving you right now is a sight you’ve never, ever seen, and you’ve had her begging for release and begging for your mercy plenty of times. Nothing like this.

Memory is a strange thing, because you may not be certain exactly what is going on in her mind, but you’re pretty sure it has something to do with fear. Despite every attempt at the opposite, she’s become incredibly easy for you to read, and the way her eyes are panicked, just a little, her tightly pressed lips, the fidgeting and the slight clench of her fingers around Daniel, it all points towards a woman on the edge. How can she actually be afraid of Fred now? There is nothing that man can do to her here, and that is obvious probably even to Hannah, if Hannah knew about things like that. Whatever she’s envisioning her head, what sort of indomitable monster she sees, that’s not Fred. He’s a weakling, a runt, the tiniest pup of the litter so he pushes out his chest, beats his fists against it, and screams. The only people who fall for it are other runts.

He’s all show. You smacked him across the face once, in Gilead, and that hurt your hand more than he hurt you afterwards. And Serena has a good six inches on you.

Besides, he has no claim on anything. Not her, not you, not the children. An emperor of nothing, a false god. He’s a tiny naked man parading around Gilead insisting everyone compliment his fine robes. Here in Canada, nobody plays that game. Nobody has to anymore. Satisfaction takes a lot of forms, but the best surely would be watching that reality sink in.

“Just go. For half an hour.” It’s a compromise at the very least, to save Rita the inevitable punishment if she can’t persuade Serena. You hold up the address. “I’ll be there after 30 minutes.” Like talking to a young child, or a frightened dog, you move closer. “How does that sound?”

Okay. Truth be told, you sort of want to see Fred in-person and this suggestion is wholly devious and self-indulgent. You want to see his face as you take his ex-wife’s hand in yours and pull her away. No, as she readily walks away from him with your hand clasped tightly in hers. All these word games, all the blog-fuelled sparring, all the traps she’s set for him in the printed word, you want to see the pay off. It’s one thing to face Serena alone; it’s another to face you and Serena. Together. That is Fred Waterford’s greatest fear and you knew it all along. Finally, you’ll witness the grand finale in all its wicked glory and take the bow you deserve.

It’s been _such_ a long time coming.

Rita lets a trembling sigh escape as Serena nods her agreement, even when every inch of her body is clearly screaming at her to run, hugging Daniel closer. Warmth clenches at your chest, something akin to pride perhaps, as you recognise the sacrifice she’s placing on your altar. _This is for you_ , she says with no more than the glisten of her eyes.

You’ve thrown her into the lions’ den. There’s nothing left but to pray for an angel to close the jaws.

_Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee._


	14. if a tree falls

How can a plan backfire in such a short period of time? Why is it that every single time you devise some strategy, life comes along to show you how pathetically shortsighted you are? You'd thrown her into the den, but angels don’t exist and the lions are starving. 

It has all gone sideways when you arrive at Bunny’s, march over to the table, and Rita won’t meet your eyes. That's the signal, so familiar, and the words, so many of them pounding against your ears. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times she does this, you never learn that Serena Joy looks out for one person, and only ever one person: herself. 

Your hands may be small, but they’re perfectly capable of squeezing the delicate skin of her neck until she gulps for air. It doesn’t take a lot of strength to crush a windpipe.

And why is everything dead suddenly alive again? Maybe you’re the one who has died and this is the underworld. There is a fiery cleft that has split open the earth beneath this place, sucking everything into something worse than Hell. Tartarus sounds about right for the hopeless, devastating feeling of being in this space, with these apparitions swarming in your vision from a nightmare you thought you’d awoken from long ago.

She’s going with him? Back to Gilead? And Nick— _oh, God, Nick_ , your breath catches painfully when you look at him beside Fred, _alive_. Not the ghost of your dreams you’ve come to accept him as. Nick is going to stay here? It’s an exchange that shouldn’t even exist, and it’s certainly not one you would agree to if she gave any indication that you have a say in this at all. But she’s clearly made up her mind already. 

Ignoring the way your mind is tripping over itself trying to figure out how Nick is even still alive, how he’d been alive this whole time and held as a prisoner of war until the Commander found Nick’s true usefulness as a human pawn, you swallow soundlessly. It wouldn’t be the first time Fred had attempted to slice the tethers between you and Serena using Nick.

Serena had sworn to you Nick was dead, and yet Fred has brought him back to life. You had mourned him in private for so long, away from her, away from Fred, away from Luke. You’d whispered to Nicole little secrets of a past she would never remember and never know. Some nights in Gilead, you could have sworn you’d felt his ghost lingering. All that time, did Serena know that he wasn’t dead? You can’t tell how much was a lie of her and Fred’s invention. Had you believed he was still alive in Gilead, would you have even seduced her in the first place? You’re not entirely sure. Back then, you were still in love with him, in that weak, tenuous way you could be when part of you still was owned by Luke. The truth seems raw now: You'd given up on Nick far too easily, and everyone here knows it.

So, Fred is offering you a do-over and Serena is giving her consent. Except you don’t want it. No. You want to tear out your hair and howl because she’s not supposed to give up this easily, not after everything she’s put you through. Especially not after the way you woke up this morning, and finally fucking felt happy, adored, safe, and grateful all at once, in a way you’d been convinced was lost to you forever. She is not allowed to snatch that back and hold it hostage. 

You’ve had quite enough of the Waterfords determining what’s best for you.

Then there’s Nick standing there, his dark eyes glistening. Maybe there’s a little fear there, but mostly softness and hope. You also can’t look him in the face and turn your back, essentially playing his executioner. Maybe that’s exactly what Serena knows, so she’s making the choice for you to save you the guilt. 

“No.” It’s all you say to the exchange. You will not allow this. No, Fred can’t take her back. He can’t dangle Nick in front of you and think you’ll just let go of Serena. Not that easily. The wince from Nick is unmissable and the guilt slices across your chest, exactly as predicted.

“June, please,” she begins but, like always, the Commander interjects.

“It’s not up to you, Offred.”

“June,” you hiss, even though you’re aware he’s only using that patronymic to further get under your skin. 

“We don’t require your blessing. Serena insisted on this mere formality, as a token of her appreciation for everything you’ve done.”

It’s so fucking familiar. The skin along your neck goes clammy, and you shudder a little. Every hair is standing on end as if a thunderstorm is sneaking up on the horizon. A tornado. With a sneer towards the man you blame for all of the Hell in your life, you rush her instead, a tiny ball of lightning, grabbing hold of her collar and slamming her back against the wall with a strength borne of nothing other than sheer terror. The loud thunk of her body against the wood seems to even surprise the Commander.

She doesn’t fight you, just slumps down weakly, smaller than you’ve ever seen her and places her hands over your fists. She’s trembling too but nothing can compare to the fury you feel right now.

“Don’t you fucking dare do this to me,” you spit at her, a menacing tone you’re not sure you’ve ever had reason to use before. Or maybe once. Once in the backseat of a Guardian vehicle as Hannah sat outside, and you spewed everything you had at her stoic form. This feels the exact same. The Bunny’s waitress looks wide-eyed from behind the bar, but the night-cloaked Guardians stand sternly in her sight.

“I have to,” she mewls weakly, pathetically pleading with you and, once more, you’re overcome with revulsion. “Nick—”

“No,” you interrupt. You don’t want to hear about Nick, you don’t want to hear about your kids, you don’t want her martyrdom, or her noble excuses and justifications. He can run. He can run right now, just straight onto the busy street and be free. He doesn’t need her or you to escape. But he stands there, as he’s always done. Watching and waiting. A coward. “How can you even trust _him_?” The venomous sneer escapes from your tone as you gesture towards Fred.

“Don’t worry. She’ll be safe,” the Commander says as he points a finger, grimacing, and Serena swallows heavily. “We made a pinky promise.”

For perhaps the second or third time ever in your life, you want to commit murder. Honest to goodness bloody murder. The only thing that holds you back is the presence of covert Guardians, bystanders in the restaurant, and the fact your hands are currently occupied with the loose jacket draped over your wife. Otherwise, you would have launched yourself at him and not given up until your fingernails were ripped out of their nail beds and you left his corpse a shredded and bloody pulp on the linoleum tile. 

You’re still that dog in a cage, trapped and snarling at whoever you can. You snap at whatever fingers get too close.

Serena shifts uncomfortably and drops her hands from yours, hiding her amputation from view although you all know exactly what she’s missing.

She’s not safe. She’ll never be safe with him, no matter how priceless a trophy she is. She doesn’t have to be happy, or even safe, to be on display. Merely obedient, and you know better than most how Gilead ensures absolute obedience. How wonderful for Gilead to return its prodigal daughter, and reintegrate her into the world she helped create. It’s where she belongs. _Look_ , they will say, _she has seen the error of her ways and returned to us_ ; the demonic possession of homosexuality, adultery, and faithlessness has lost its grasp on her soul finally. Praise _fucking_ be.

It’ll be framed as an exorcism. A success, a testament of Gilead's might.

Your lips turn into a silent snarl, but you can’t form words to throw back at him. It’s too chilling a threat, and you feel too helpless to do much more than stare at Serena pleadingly instead. She has to do something, she has to come to you, she has to take your hand and refuse to move. _Throw away the deal_ , you want to scream as you slowly, reluctantly back away from her. Maybe she needs some space. 

Nick will always mean so much to you—he’s the father of your child, for God’s sake—but you refuse this choice. 

“She’s my wife,” you finally growl quietly, at a loss. What other argument do you have left?

Fred tilts his head slightly, his eyes hardening and narrowing a little. His jaw is tight as he considers your words. “Is she?”

You’ve seen them play this game many times in the past, but usually it was Serena asserting her dominance in this fucked up threesome, laying claim to her husband as if you wanted him at all. This time is different, you want her and she wants you. No one wants Fred, and you know—if he could—he’d have both of you, but Serena will do for now. He’ll come for you eventually, probably using Serena as bait. His hand pulls hard on hers, grasping onto her as if she’s going to run.

Does he know her at all? Has he ever?

Regardless of the chaotic swamp of legality, she’s yours and you’re hers. In your chest, you feel that. She's been helplessly yours since you first entered the Waterford house. Fred knows it too but he’ll snatch and claw at the confusing law to retain his control over her, and thus you. 

Your voice wavers despite your certainty inside, knowing you’re losing her. “Yes.”

Nobody says anything for a moment. Not until Fred nods blandly and squints at her then to you. “Hmm. _They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it_.” He calmly recites cherry-picked passages exactly as he’s always done, and just as before, it has no impact on you. But Serena… she’s always been weaker, more vulnerable to such things. Her knuckles go white around her own hand. You know it’s all she can do, because she’s still a coward when it counts.

“Remember your scripture, dear?” he mutters to her. “ _God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural. Women, consumed with passion for each other,_ _and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error._ ” 

Goddamn him. And goddamn that fucking revisionist Gilead scripture. That isn’t how the words go.

“She’s never going to love you.” It’s the only weapon you have left, so you toss out the words carelessly, hoping they’re going to hurt. Maybe there’s still a soft spot hidden deep inside somewhere that can bruise. 

You should have known it wouldn't have made any difference to him at all. How can a demon feel love anyway?

He scoffs, in that familiar and arrogant way you’ve always known. “If I needed Serena to love me, I would never have married her.”

Maybe the confusion is obvious on your face because before you can even ask, he’s shaking his head at your stupidity.

“I know exactly what she is. And long before you did.” Serena glances at you quickly, scared and apologetic at once, and then darts her gaze elsewhere. Anywhere but Fred, as if she can avoid the words entirely if she pretends he doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, you’re trudging through this swamp of meaningless words, attempting to make some sense of whatever the hell is happening because what you think Fred is saying can’t possibly be what he is actually saying. Sure, there was that time he told you love doesn’t exist, that it’s pointless and imaginary. Even then, you hadn’t been convinced by him, thinking that he was simply making excuses because his marriage had been particularly but temporarily strained at that time. Maybe, all the while, he was actually telling you the truth.

“You really want to believe that it was all about you, don’t you?” His voice drips with the sneer of his words, smug and toxic. “That night I made you watch. You think that was only for your benefit?” 

Well, you hadn’t thought it was entirely for you, but mostly. He beat Serena because he couldn’t touch you, and because she actually committed the grievous sin of attempting to save a child’s life via forgery. You can still recall him talking about remembering her place. Looking at him now, you wonder if you’d been too naive, too eager to not see what that rose had meant, what those trinkets and her willingness to abide your every request signalled to him.

“You didn’t stop to ask yourself how Serena, the most voluntarily obedient and enthusiastic of Gilead women, knew right away what to do, what to expect when she’s done wrong? Serena knows. Her father can attest to the same necessary methods to curb his daughter’s… appetite.” He chuckles again as your mouth hangs open, staring at her. This is why you’d begged her to tell you more about her childhood, so nightmares like this wouldn’t be sprung on you like the worst surprise party ever. There is no way you could have suspected that not only did everyone close to Serena already know about her most tightly guarded secret, but that it was so known, she was beaten for it. And the Commander knew? Suddenly, you see Eden across from you, not Serena. A young girl, unwilling to be there but forced, brainwashed perhaps into an arranged marriage with a suitor meant to keep her right with God, and pay her price.

“Serena…” All you can do is breathe her name in concern, and she won’t meet your eyes now. 

Fred won’t let it rest. “Serena’s desire for men extends only so far as the power she covets, and to own them for the purposes of child-bearing. So, love?” It’s a joke to him. He turns to her, still unable to let that arrogant grin fall. Finally, he owns something of your both, something of value. He has her past, and you don’t. “You didn’t even tell the Handmaid about that Bible camp, did you?” Serena swallows heavily, and squeezes her eyes shut, playing ostrich like always. 

“Shut up, Fred,” she hisses under her breath, but her muscles twitch all across her face.

“What was it called? Reparative _therapy_?” How quaint the euphemisms are, you think with a snort. He shrugs, having made his point. “Likely didn’t tell you how her father came to the knowledge of his daughter's predisposition, did she? Why she was never allowed any female friends past the age of 12?” 

It’s too much. You don’t want to hear anymore about all the things she hasn’t told you. There's still time for that, even if part of you is stinging from the knowledge that she’s hidden such a huge part of herself away, despite everything. That is more of a betrayal than anything that has happened here in Bunny’s today, even if a tiny part of you understands why that is something a person would want to never allow into the light of day ever again. So much more makes sense about the Serena you thought you knew: why she was always so awkward around other women, how unsocialized she seemed to be, unable to stray from the boundaries of etiquette without seeming like a lumbering elephant navigating a spiders web. It explains, too, the repression, the rage, the fear. Maybe too, there’s something about her obsession with procreation—a _real_ woman’s role. The only natural outcome for a female, because it is the only thing of value they provide. And how much shame drapes over Serena on a near-daily basis and how she had managed to warp it into a shield to cover herself.

God, it really explains why she refused to let it go, even here, even for you. It’s why she outed the two of you to your chosen family. It doesn’t make it any more forgivable, just understandable. And it certainly doesn’t excuse all the other atrocities she’s had a hand in beyond her personal life.

You can’t imagine a life like that. Hell, you’re actually convinced that your mother wished you were gay. That would have made her actually proud of you, in the way you’d always striven for. Marrying a man and having his child? Boring surrender to the patriarchy. She wanted a Moira for a daughter, not a June. How different this entire world could have been if you and Serena had switched parents at birth. She could have been who she is, raised right with love and support. And you wouldn’t have had to hide anything, because, yes, you were completely satisfied with everything heterosexual. You may have had some issue with the whole militant evangelical thing, but otherwise, you know her father wouldn’t have whipped you for your inability to be attracted to men. Because, well, you are. Sure, you’re really fucking attracted to women--a specific one anyway, but you could have lived comfortably enough without the need for bible torture camp or child abuse. 

Part of you feels ashamed for having such a boring childhood, in comparison, when others were suffering so much for such important reasons. You’d spent years resenting your mother, fighting with her, desperately attempting to earn her love and respect when she was almost incapable of giving it to you. You know you’re not the child she wanted, but you’d tried to be. It hurt every second that she made that clear, every time she gushed over a friend of yours instead, or ignored an accomplishment of yours, or dismissed the things you cared about. You’d spent your first twenty years chasing your mother around, trying to make her love you. 

And you know that of course she did. Maybe not as much as you would have liked, or in the way you would have preferred. But she did. Because as much as she may not have agreed with your choices, with your desires and ambitions in life, she never forced you to change. She only ever asked you to accept that she cannot appreciate it. There were no leather belts, or Godly incantations, or childhood torture. An absentee mother trying to save the rest of the world, and letting her only daughter fend for herself. Surely negligence isn’t as bad as whatever Serena experienced.

It doesn’t change the fact you don’t want to hear anymore about Serena’s childhood, not from fucking Fred, at any rate. It’s not his to share but it’s certainly a trophy he’s lording over your head.

A cold wind sweeps through the room as Serena’s spine stiffens and she clenches her jaw.

It’s sad that you know exactly what is happening as she does that, but tears aren’t forthcoming anymore. Just a resigned hatred.

“I have made my decision,” she announces, refusing to meet your glare. A muscle twitches in her cheek. A tell. She’s such a fucking liar. And a coward.

“Fine,” you sigh with irritation, giving up. If she won’t fight, neither can you. There’s no way to take on all of these people on your own. “Go, Serena.” Running a hand over your face, you groan. “Just fuck off, then.”

It still stings when you catch the flicker in her eyes. Oh, you think you feel betrayed, Serena? It’s not even close to what you feel now. This is how a goodbye has to be for you to survive it. In your periphery, the Commander has the tiniest smirk on his lips. Yes, Fred, you win. Again.

Nothing you had with her means anything, obviously.

Fuck the Waterfords.

With a sad shake of your head, you move away but you’re halted by a strong grip on your arm, pulling you back. Of course it’s her.

“Let me go,” you sigh. “I have to go tell our children why Mama isn’t ever coming back.”

That does it, a little. She physically flinches, but doesn’t loosen her grip. Had she forgotten that part of the equation. Yes, you can handle being abandoned and betrayed again, but the kids? Her own son and daughter. Hannah. They won’t understand. They’ll never understand, not even when the papers are covered with her execution that is inevitably coming when she returns to Gilead. Why would she choose that?

“I’m doing this for them,” she whispers fiercely, as she leans into your ear. “And for you.”

A snort is all you can give her. “Okay. Thanks.” That will definitely help them sleep at night. You can’t do much more than roll your eyes. “Never say I didn’t try. I fought for you.” 

Her breath hitches as she leans her forehead down against your hair. It takes every ounce of willpower in your body not to turn to her. This is the last you’ll ever be able to see her, touch her, to smell her, to hurt her so you try one more time: “You gave up. Not me.”

With a brusque yank, you pull your arm free of her and give her one last disappointed glance.

“I love you,” she tries again, rushing the words out too quickly and careless about the rest of the audience that witnesses them.

Shrugging, you try not to laugh but fail. “So what?” What an utterly useless sentiment now. And she still craves absolution. No. Not this time. There’s no point in being here any longer. Instead you hold out your hand to Nick. “A deal’s a deal, right?”

He looks to Commander Waterford, who nods.

The strangest part is that you can’t even remember leaving the restaurant, like someone had surgically removed it from your memory.

* * *

You don’t tell the kids when you get home with Nick in tow. There’s a million different ways to explain it but you’re not feeling strong enough yet, and you need Moira’s help. Hannah wonders why Serena isn’t there, and doesn’t quite buy your excuse about her visiting a friend. She, better than anybody, knows Serena has no friends. When Nick’s eyes go wide seeing Nicole for the first time since Gilead, you remind him not to tell her yet. He’s just a friend too, for now. A friend that will sleep on the sofa, for now. Maybe you’ll love him one day, as you raise your daughter together, if you can ever bring back those Gilead feelings that had died long ago. What other choice do you have left? God, everything is such a mess.

Daniel cries all night long, beside you in bed while her space remains empty. You want to cry with him but can’t. Instead, you press your nose into his blonde baby tufts of hair and draw one shuddering breath after another. She’s left both of you.

In your head, a loop of all the times she’s told you she loves you plays. All the vows, speeches, quotes, everything. And you begin to doubt she meant any of it at all, especially when you can see your phone lighting up on the nightstand with Mark Tuello’s number, over and over. You hold onto Danny instead of answering.

* * *

Nothing has changed come morning. You know it will take weeks—months even to change. Maybe years, if you really want to be honest with yourself. It will take Serena’s name being on that list of Gileadean casualties for anything to really shift. Nick and Luke being here won’t help.

You can’t live in suspended animation like this again. Not anymore. You’ve done your time.

It doesn’t take very much to tear information from Nick in the kitchen that morning. He owes you, and all you want from him is directions. A simple address.

* * *

There are precisely four people on the planet that Serena would die for. All of them share your name, your blood, or both. Your list may be slightly longer than hers, but you know now that she's right up there too. If someone had said that back in Gilead, or even in those years before when you'd vaguely heard her mentioned on the news or disdainfully by your mother in passing, you only would have thought, "Yeah fucking right. _Her?"_ How totally fucked up that would have been.

But you stand in the lobby of The Ritz, staring aimlessly around, waiting and thinking, knowing full well that she has just sacrificed her whole life for you and Nicole, even Nick, and the entire ragtag group you call a family now. Trading people never seemed like a good move before. It never really solved anything, to perpetuate the same cycle, in a slightly different way.

It needs to break.

You glance over to the reception desk, and notice with some sympathy how the girl there is too busy with a pack of irate businessmen, red-faced and blustery. Some things never change. Men especially.

You think about Fred, squirreled away in some room upstairs with her. Sure, he got worse but he never really changed. Not his basic instincts. No, they stayed equally as pathetic and cruel as ever underneath that polished veneer. 

A man in all black strides through the lobby, and he has a certain smell. Like antiseptic and smoke. Like he’s been holed away in a jail cell somewhere, but not as a prisoner. There’s something about the footsteps, the confidence, the slimy way he paces. And that clinging scent. You can tell a covert Guardian by sight, unlike many of these ignorant Canadians. Most of the time here, you wish you could be as blissfully ignorant as they are of what war looks like in their hometown. But today, finally, you're thankful for the increased perception. 

He has a type of gait that only trained killers have, and he's carrying bags. To a less observant person, those symbols probably wouldn't mean anything, even if they know about Gilead from the news. But you've seen it before, on Nick, on transit vans, on locked doors, and badges, and flags. That round little insignia on an otherwise black briefcase with gold embossment. It makes your skin crawl.

For some reason, you feel as if you’re seeing more and more of these men. In places they shouldn’t be. Perhaps it’s not them, not really, but rather your brain playing tricks and making normal men take on the phantoms lurking in your memories. But then, maybe that itself is wishful thinking because if you can’t trust your brain then, how can you trust it now? The seasons change, and so does the weight of Gilead pressing down on Canada. It lifts, just enough to allow you to breathe, and then falls, heavier, dead weight against an already fragile country. Every time Canada catches its breath, it fills with a false sense of security.

Or maybe those feelings are only your nightmares speaking to you in broad daylight. You could swear the tenor of the news has been slowly eroding, and these black-clothed revenants stalk the corners once again, nipping and chewing at Canada’s rougher edges, looking for fresh blood and new wombs.

You’ve always been scared of vampires.

* * *

You’d heard once that love is choosing. It didn’t really make sense before, with Luke, with Nick, with Hannah and Nicole. If anything, those weren’t even a choice you had a hand in; they felt so instantaneous and natural, such second nature as if you were built for it. Something instinctual that had been coded into your very DNA with nothing of your own input. But her? There was always hesitation and second-guessing. Third-guesses. Fourth and fifth and sixth guesses. You distrusted your instincts, and your emotions, and especially your own body. Back and forth you’d wavered at every turn, rolling around the terrible possible outcomes in your mind. Yet you had—despite all that—eventually chosen her each time, even if it felt like it wasn’t quite something within your power. 

It’s surrender, you suppose. And surrender tastes like rust and lemon rinds, and smells like Serena. 

So you stand here at a hotel room door, choosing her again. 

You could walk away, turn around, never look back and hope she’s not executed back in Gilead. Or maybe it would be merciful for her to end up on the Wall rather than back in the Commander’s lair. Your gut clenches when you consider what he will do to her back there. So, you know, there’s no way you’ll ever be able to walk away from her. Is it even a choice when you know there is no other option that you can live with?

You have no plan at all, and as you raise your hand to the door, you realise that Fred could just as easily answer the door. In fact, it's most likely that he will. If you could get in there, get that door shut behind you before he can react… 

Down the corridor is an unattended maid’s cart. Would she be sympathetic to your plight and your ploy? Decent employment is hard to find these days, even in such a large city and certainly she’d lose her job if things were to go south. But again, what other choice is open to you? Stalking down the carpeted hallway, you watch from a distance as she closes a guest room door behind her, moving quickly onto the next, swiping the master key card that dangles from a lanyard around her wrist.

Shit.

Casually strolling by, you peer in, noticing how she places it on the desk as she goes about the cleaning. If you could just…

You do, with the stealth normally reserved for predatory cats and movie ninjas, and still so unnatural for you. Sprinting back down the hall, keycard in hand, you swipe quickly while muttering the usual housekeeping greeting as cover. As the green light flashes and you push the heavy door open, you toss the keycard out into the corridor.

You’ve really not thought this through, but then, when have you ever truly considered the consequences of anything you’ve done with Serena?

There is the sound of a shower, maybe, in a room elsewhere in the suite. Maybe it’s a sink faucet. You don’t see Fred nor Serena, but there are blue gloves placed neatly on the table near the door. Suitcases are packed and arranged in a tidy row by Rita for Guardian pickup. The Commander could burst out of the adjacent rooms any second and everything will quickly self-destruct. Pushing your luck, you creep around to the bedroom. 

There’s a tearing feeling, like your skin is being seared off your bones and your heart is beating freely in the air. So exposed, so cold. Fuck, it hurts you physically when you see Serena there, her back to you as if she didn’t hear a thing. Perhaps the sound of the shower muffled the sound of the door as you entered. She’s pulling on a blue woollen tunic, slowly covering the angry red and purple bruises around both wrists. That’s your wife, battered and slumped in defeat. You watch silently as she adjusts the cowl neck over what also appear to be smaller but no less noticeable bruises around her throat, in the pattern of four fingers and a thumb.

They’re smeared across the delicate skin you used to place your mouth against, and draw out tiny whimpers from her, making her squirm and writhe pleadingly against you. The same spot you’d gently kiss and nuzzle on lazy Saturday mornings, and she’d hum pleasantly, maybe even giggle, before rolling over to pull you into her arms. How dare Fred Waterford mark her there. That’s yours.

Her hair is slicked back into a tight bun again, not loose, wavy, and a little tussled, or tucked up in a messy ponytail as you’ve become accustomed to. It’s not her anymore. With a heavy swallow you notice the red around the shell of her ear, where a metal tag has pierced the cartilage. Even now, the pain of that resonates in you and you mindlessly reach for your own ear where only a scar remains. Wives aren’t meant to be tagged, only Handmaids, but there’s Serena with an assigned number on a metal band pushed through her ear just the same. Branded and caked with dried blood.

“Serena,” you whisper, hoping not to spook her as you step carefully and slowly into the bedroom. 

She spins abruptly at the sound, and immediately glances fearfully towards the bathroom door as you can hear her suck in a tight breath. She’s absolutely terrified, and nothing makes you more uneasy than Serena like this. The colour has drained from her cheeks, and her eyes are wide, every inch of her is twitchy and uncomfortable. 

As you move towards her, she steps back and something about that both irritates you and worries you. All you want to do is hold her hand, pull her along with you towards the exit, and never turn around.

“You need to leave,” she finally hisses, straightening her spine and pulling down the veil of austerity she so often used in Gilead. Instead of listening to her--because you’re not very good at that anyway--you move even closer and she backs up again.

You’re within two feet of her, almost close enough to reach out and touch her when she speaks again. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice is rough and strangled, like she’s choking on the stale air of the hotel room. As she holds up a hand to halt your movement, she spits the words again. “ _Don’t_ touch me, June.”

At first, you wonder if it’s because she’s injured somehow, that your touch would physically hurt her further. You’ve pressed on so many of her wounds at this point that surely another wouldn’t be that different. But she tilts her head, her eyes filling with tears as you get into her space. Stubbornness when it comes to Serena has always come so naturally. 

“June, please, don’t.” She’s pleading now, in that faint cadence she uses for her prayers to the big man in the sky.

Your hand takes hers anyway, slipping your fingers along hers until they are intertwined and she slumps against the wall, throwing her head back and staring helplessly at the ceiling. You can see the bruises even more clearly now, at this close distance and without the lurking shadows of her face to hide them. Your heart races, and your blood heats, clinging tighter to her hands.

The metal feels hard under your fingers, and you realise that her wedding band is still tightly wound around her finger. And not the one Fred has re-gifted her with. It’s the one you bought her. Finally she makes sense: she’s scared of him, yes, but she’s more scared of you and your influence.

Even if she refuses to look at you, it means nothing. You can still press up against her, trap her between the wall and your body, let your breath glide along her exposed skin. And you do. Of course you do. She's helpless when you're this near and it's something you suspect you've known since that very first time she slithered into your bed, not 24 hours after you had returned to the Waterford house. She's physically incapable of resistance towards you.

But you don't move your hands over her hips, or her waist. Her fingers are clenched in yours, almost painfully, but your breath is drifting against her neck. The call to her temptation slips out as she shivers. "Serena, please come with me." 

It's almost as if you don't even have to see the wince to feel it. The way her body stiffens, her fingers flex momentarily, the tendons in her neck jut out. 

"You have to leave," is the only thing that escapes out from her mouth, cracking and breaking as it does. Staunchly, she continues to refuse to look at you. "I am trying to save your life, June. And the life of your kids."

"Our kids," you hiss, or has she forgotten already?

Anger flares to life inside her and she pushes back against your resistance, glaring at you finally. Those dark blue eyes flickering with rage again, and it's been so long since you've seen this that it's a little exciting. "Get. Out."

It’s insanity. This mission she's on to make herself some sort of martyr for no reason is not very appealing. You long to tell her that it doesn't matter what the hell she does now, nothing is ever going to erase all the horrible shit she helped release on the world. There's no neat little reconciliation package for that. This would be a tiny drop in the ocean, really. 

"Get over yourself," you snap at her, biting hard down on all the other words you're longing to spit. "If you cared about saving me, you'd at least ask me what I need."

Her gaze remains icy and cold, pointed daggers of indignation aimed straight at you. " _You_ don't even know what _you_ need. Don’t be such a child."

Feeling like a feral cat even though she’s the one cornered against the wall, your words snarl out from behind your teeth. "I know _I_ need you, you stupid fuck."

Her stony expression crumbles in small pieces as you blast at her. Her face falls, her head down, and her shoulders slump. The second you feel her cheek resting against your temple, you sigh. "And I need you," she starts. "Of course, I need our kids.” Her hand with its amputated fingers brushes over your cheek, cradling your face and pulling you tighter. You think you feel her lips against your hairline where her cheek just rested. She inhales deeply. “But I need you and them to be safe more. There's no other point."

It’s getting irritating, frustrating, and repetitive now, especially since the whole deal doesn’t seem to make any logical sense. How does her return to Gilead ensure anybody’s safety? “Come with me.” Your words are a quiet murmur into the warm cocoon of space you’ve created between you. “Tuello—The police can—”

The scoff that explodes out of her seems to shock even herself and her terrified gaze jumps right to the bathroom, abruptly severing the gentility of your moment. “The police? Don’t be so stupid.”

Her words pound into your chest like a fistful of shrapnel and you resist the urge to smack her hard in the face. Maybe you should just let Fred have her if she’s going to be like this. Let Gilead have its way with her, turn her into a scapegoat, have her swinging limp, bloated, and blue up on the Wall, make her a warning flag to fly high for every other woman who thinks about escape. Give Gilead its poster child back. 

Maybe it is actually what she deserves.

The thing is, it’s not what you deserve. It’s not what Hannah, Nicole, or Dan deserve. It’s not what all those women here who look up to her for strength and resistance deserve. Her new book hit #1 on the bestsellers list for a very important reason. She’s started something here to counteract the shades of everything she once was, and she can’t run from that now. What a goddamn coward.

She rips her hands free of yours, flinging you off like a bad smell. Her lips are set in a grim line, waiting for you to leave. 

“You’re really doing this?” The disappointment in your voice must register with her because her lips part slowly, as they always do when your challenge is finally getting through to her and she’s feeling vulnerable. “You’re really going to just leave me, huh?” You grab hold of her bruised wrist, tightly and on purpose, squeezing until she blanches and recoils, hitting against the wall behind her. “For this?” you ask as you yank back the sleeve of her dress, exposing the black and blue evidence of Fred’s abuse where he’d clearly tied her wrists overnight. The wince is undeniable and she twists out of your grasp again but you don’t let her get away, and grab for the bulky neckline of her pretty teal dress, pulling it aside to see the bruises around her neck up close.

Despite the anger and bravado in your actions, the moment you see them again, up close, you waver and your breath hitches, hating everything about their existence. “It only gets worse, Serena.”

She knows that. She’s chosen this but she must know that you know it too. She must understand that it’s not only about her anymore. You’re part of it too; when she hurts, you feel it too.

Instead of wrestling herself free, she sighs and clenches her hands by her sides. “You’ll have Nick to—”

“I’m not in love with Nick! For fuck’s sake, Serena, what aren’t you getting about this?”

At once, all you see in her face is regret and reluctant hope at the same time. 

“Look,” you groan, letting her go and running a hand over your face for a moment. “I just—I just want you to know exactly what you’re doing. You know, what you’re actually sacrificing.” She says nothing, waiting for your truth to leak out. “I love—”

Immediately she cuts you off again. “Stop. I told you not to.”

“I don’t care. You don’t get to make this decision without hearing everything you’re throwing away. Then decide because it’s taken me a fucking long time to work through this and not end up really hating myself, so fuck you if you think you get to decide my entire life for me and avoid the truth while you do it cos it makes it easier for _you_.”

Her eyes are begging you not to continue but this is what you’ve always done to her, and it’s what you’ll always do as long as you can.

“I don’t know why but I’ve fallen in love with you, as stupid and awful and goddamn impossible as you are. It happened and it’s all your fault. And don’t think I wouldn’t change it if I could cos, Serena, the last thing I ever wanted was this”—you snarl, gesturing between your bodies—“because, fuck, I really hate you sometimes, so much, and I end up hating myself for letting you do this to me.”

She looks like she wants to interrupt but these words have clung to the back of your throat and burrowed so deeply into your chest that you’re not about to stop ripping them out into the light now. She needs to face the monster she’s made of you. She’s so deeply embedded inside you that you feel like you don’t have a heartbeat without her. That’s what she must hear.

“And I know you’ve felt the same for much longer, because I can see right through you, even if I didn’t want to hear it. And I need you to know that I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner, and maybe if I had, you wouldn’t have made this idiotic, selfish fucking decision.”

There. The truth is out there, laid bare. She says nothing for a long time, her face a blank slate and her eyes locked onto you. Then, a twitch, just a small hint of a smile but there’s something behind it that looks like anguish, a torrid sort of defeat. 

“Do you think I didn’t know?”

It’s your turn to be silenced. Her question is so abrupt, so precisely aimed at your throat to bleed you dry.

“I know, June. You really think that I would have stayed all these years, that I would have married you and raised children with you, if I couldn’t _feel_ that from you?”

Suddenly, you’re too exposed and raw. The light is streaming in, burning, roasting, blistering your body. Love hadn't even factored into your decision to spend your life with her, at least not consciously. She’s slowly stripping every piece of your armour away, everything you had relied upon to protect yourself for so many years. She knew? All this time, she’s known you better than you’ve known yourself. And still she’s made the decision that it’s not enough to matter. Between the trembling of your limbs with the epiphany and the way your body feels like it’s beginning to boil under your own skin, there’s an overwhelming desire to turn and run from this, and make her feel how it is to be abandoned for once.

“We fell in love with each other a _long_ time ago, whether you’re aware of that or not.” Her voice splinters, as if the bones of the very words themselves are broken.

How could she have known all along when you didn’t know yourself? All that trauma, had it really blocked out the most obvious thing? God, you do hate her. This whole time you’ve been struggling and fighting yourself, wrestling with every demon known to you, and she’s simply been waiting. Maybe she wasn’t even waiting, but she knew it all along. What a bitch, you try to say to yourself but even in your own mind it feels weak and wrong. Somehow, you know she means Gilead; she knew all the way back then, sometime. How long? And it bothers you too about when she knew her own feelings. When did she accept it? It feels like she’s run a marathon and you’ve just passed the starting gate. When you first locked eyes with her in the sitting room, did she know what was slowly stewing in her gut? 

Somehow, looking back on those first few moments where she had insisted that Fred was her husband until death do part seems less like a threat towards you, but rather a desperate attempt to convince herself not to stray. Roping her volatile sins back into the fold, she’d insisted on religious vows to dissuade herself from temptation. Fuck. She will give trouble back. Yes, it was a promise. You gave her the worst kind of trouble with God. And did she ever give it back, and she can’t seem to stop herself now. Did she know all those years ago what she had the potential to do, and how likely she was to fall?

Why doesn’t she want to hear the words? Of course, it would make leaving so much more difficult, and real. And maybe she was trying to protect you from yourself. Who the hell knows anymore.

You love her. And she’s not allowed to so casually toss that aside after how hard you’ve worked for it, how long it’s taken for you both to say it, and understand it all. You’ve finally found a way to love her out loud, without any of that poisonous resentment towards your own feelings, or hers.

“Serena,” you whisper, with the roots of each syllable feathering out in the silence. Her breathing is shallow as you reach out, ghosting your hands over her cheeks, cradling her face and finally— _finally_ —her hands brush your body, sliding around your waist, warmly, softly. You need her to not let go this time. Her eyes close as you pull her down to you. “Please. You _have_ to come _home_ with me now.” 

Sometimes winter comes slowly, with small cool gusts that rattle fragile leaves, greens that have given way to reds to yellows and browns. The chill sneaks in through summer’s leftovers all through September, and then October slips slowly into a colder November when the rains come down more often, once or twice turning to ice on their way. By the time December comes with its fluffy snows and blustery winds, you’re ready for it. 

But then, occasionally, the season blows in like death itself, sudden and unexpected. One day it’s warm and sunny, the next, cars are slipping on black ice.

When you notice perfectly-coiffed Fred standing in the doorway of the bathroom, the bite of cold that falls over you is akin to the latter. He is an autumn blizzard, freezing green leaves into embossed crystals, impervious to life. You can’t breathe, it’s too frigid in the room, even with Serena’s warmth pressed against your body and the strong beat of her heart echoing loudly between you, she is alive in the pulse of blood through your body.

A friend of your mother’s had spoken about malevolent spirits once, the demons that are trapped in our plane of existence and how even if you can’t see them, the sheer ice cold air surrounding them is enough to alert you of their presence. Demons, she had claimed, prey on life and heat is life, until you’re paralysed in ice. The Commander is a manifestation of everything that had scared you about that story from your childhood. His vicious smile at the sight before him reminds you too much of that time in Gilead, when he hunched over a plate of meat and cheese, and flippantly provoked you with pointed, nasty little insinuations that Serena was your very own guardian angel. 

Your hands dig into her jaw, and she stiffens under your fingertips, sensing something is wrong.

Fred still says nothing, content to merely make you uncomfortable by his presence alone. When his footsteps hiss against the hotel carpet, you can tell Serena is aware. Her head snaps up abruptly to face him, but her hands don’t leave their place around your waist. It’s safer that way.

A glint in Fred’s eyes unnerves you even more and his smile remains plastered on as if it’s merely makeup. There’s something sinister about him even though, to anybody else, he’d likely come off as entirely pleasant.

“Offred, how wonderful. Did you bring your suitcase?” The calm voice is familiar, no different than usual, really. Pleased, even. It’s like he’s not even angry to see you here, holding his wife and begging her to leave. “It’ll be nice to have a Handmaid back in our house. One we can trust. One that knows what’s at stake if she misbehaves again. And what a lovely household we would have. All those beautiful children of mine.”

He can’t possibly believe you’re here to accompany them back to Gilead, and bring Nicole and Daniel with you. 

“Fred,” Serena starts and pulls away from you. The single word is dusted with fear, but also something resembling a threat. That’s always been her way.

“Of course,” he begins, a grimace securely in place but sounding both smug and bored in equal measure. “Handmaids and Wives are not to fraternize, as you know. In any capacity except that which the law decrees.” 

So, you’re welcome to come back with them, at the cost of never being allowed near Serena except during the Ceremony. And he thinks that is a possibility? Unless he believes he can keep you literally chained up in your respective rooms, you would find a way to her, or her to you. That’s how it has always been, even when you hated each other—and if that isn’t good enough to keep you apart, what good are Gilead’s threats? 

He must be joking, in that cruel, disparaging way of his.

His lips turn up into what could once have fooled you for a grin, but you see beyond it now as he stalks up beside you both. This is all a game. He fancies himself a predator probably, the one in control of his disobedient women. 

Everything is so quiet, so careful, so slow. Your heart begins to pound harder with the tension.

If someone from the future had come along at this exact moment and told you within five minutes Fred Waterford will be dead, you’d have laughed. Nothing feels as imprecise and unsafe and brittle as this showdown in a hotel bedroom. He appears to float around, like he’s carried by a thick fog, something dark and ominous. You’d had nightmares like this once and he had choked you with this same smoke. Something like those terrible cigars he used to puff on in his study in Gilead, and the stench of burning books and burning bodies. In your dreams, sometimes you had seen that entire house burning to the ground. Other times, it burnt you.

As he moves closer, you distance yourself from Serena despite everything else in your body screaming at you to stick together. There’s strength in numbers but he’s always been so good at dividing you.

By the time you can smell his freshly applied cologne, bile has already made its way up your throat.

“Come now, dear,” he begins with the softness of another man, making sure to be as careful and kind in tone as possible. After all, he’s the adoring husband who’s just rescued his prodigal wife from the clutches of possessive, faithless heathens. “Time to go home.”

She doesn’t resist as he grips her hand, pushing you out of the way in the process. He turns to you. “Gilead can be so forgiving to those who truly repent their sins.” The self-righteousness pours from his mouth, so snide and caustic and you hate him even more. He thinks he’s won. And, he has, you think as Serena follows quietly, unresistant, behind him until they’re out of the bedroom. She’ll never fight back, for whatever reason, and you know that if something doesn’t happen now, she’ll be gone forever. Once she gets back to Gilead, she’s never leaving again. 

“Serena, please!” you call out across the room, following hotly behind with a newfound urgency. She won’t meet your eyes and focuses instead on putting on those ugly blue leather gloves.

When the Commander reaches for her arm, it's all you can stand. The way his fist closes around her, how you know it's pinching and painful, in a way that will bruise later because you’ve felt his grip too, turns your vision from red to white with rage. Without thinking, you rush him, yanking his forearm with all your strength, trying to free her. 

Perhaps it's the surprise that works, because he does let go and stumble back briefly. It's enough of an affront to his manhood that some hysterical woman has bested him in a feat of strength. Fury speckles his features, his lips curl, his eyes blaze, his nose twists; he's ready to attack. 

But so are you.

The problem with Fred Waterford is that he presents himself as a lot weaker, a bigger marshmallow, and a more harmless man than he actually is. His body is no less a taut and twisted bag of muscles than it was the day he smacked you across the face and held you down by the jaw. He's one of those men who perhaps seems inoffensive and inept, but within him, is a hatred that fuels far more. Something demonic hides in his transformation. 

He's come so far, and to go back to Gilead empty-handed is simply not an option. You suspect he will kill to bring Serena back. If that means you end up stuffed in a dumpster behind the Ritz Hotel in Toronto by some Guardian, so be it. 

For a brief moment you actually believe he’s going to let it go and just drag Serena out. But pride goes before the fall, right? And his hubris is such a crude thing to witness, so unrefined.

What's curious—and what you will tell the police and Tuello later—is that you don't really know what happens. 

You do remember Serena's petrified scream as he lunges at you. You remember the look in his icy grey eyes, like he isn't fully human any longer. You even remember the peculiar sound of his voice as he snarls, “I should have had you hanged when I had the chance,” while frothing at the mouth like a wild beast, vicious and rabid. 

He had pinned your much smaller body to the hard sofa, his hands tight around your throat, maybe one was clenched on your thigh, you're not entirely sure. All you were aware of was how different it felt to have such sinister intent behind that grasp; how different it felt to the time hers did the same out of something more like desperation, lacking will. It was bizarre too how he managed to overwhelm you so fucking quickly, and how practiced his movements seemed. Militaristic almost. Ritualistic.

Most of all—and the part you never tell anyone—you remember the way, in the haze of losing air, suffocating under him, Serena had come up behind him and for a slight half a second, you'd met her wide, terrified stare. She was dying too in that second with you, as she seized the collar of his jacket and crisp white shirt, wrenching him back with all her might. But there was something else, something particularly dangerous that had flashed in the raging blue tempest of her eyes when she’d seen Fred hurt you.

_And I will contend with he who contends with you._

All those years ago, as she cried over Nicole’s crib, she’d made you a promise.

Something happened that you can only see in your memory as if you were underwater the entire time. Shadows moving, the ripple of frantic movements around you, terror in every cell, blue everywhere. You pushed against moving, slipping forces. Your fists against his chest, him feeling like a heavy stone dragging you further under. As your open hand shoved against his stony flesh, and Serena pulled him off you, her familiar strength and stature much more of a match for him, you'd sobbed. That much you do remember: the spellbinding vision of her wholly savage love for you.

As you pushed him back in tandem with her, you saw him on you all those Ceremonies, in Jezebels as he pumped ruthlessly into you, you saw the sneer on his face after you'd smacked him, when he lost his temper. You saw the cool indifference to his wife's abuse towards you and the way he used your love for your daughter to worm his way into your cunt. You saw his face as he lashed Serena with a belt, thirteen times, to get back at you—to punish you both for creating a bond. You saw every subsequent red wound on her body, the way she would flinch after he had entered her room at night with nothing but anger in his gait. You saw every bruise that once decorated her back, and the new ones on her throat and wrists now. You imagined them on your children. You pictured him raping Moira as he’d done to both you and Serena. You saw nothing but the tears, shame, rage, and helplessness that you had for years on end, that Serena hung onto long after you both escaped. Every minute is a new horror, and that nightmare has a face. It had loomed over you, sneering, choking the life out, one inch at a time. 

Maybe it is her, maybe it’s you, but in the struggle he loses his footing. 

You tell the police later that he tripped because otherwise, one or both of you is going to prison for at least manslaughter. It was an accident in the heat of a physical assault and kidnapping, your lawyer claims. (Serena's publisher springs for the best lawyers for you both, obviously seeing the dollar signs in this crime. If you can even call it that, but you don't say that to the police.) 

He stumbled back and fell, hitting his skull on the corner of a glass coffee table, so hard that scarlet red blood spilled quickly across the beige carpet. That's what you tell them in a grey interrogation room. 

Back there in the hotel, your head had broken free of the water, bursting through the surface and gulping for air as he bled out. 

Serena doesn’t move, only stares at the gory scene at her feet. This was the man whom she’d married, spent so much of her life with, and all the other terrible things they’d done together. It’s all there on the floor of a fancy Toronto hotel, slipping away.

Your own body is shaking as you fall back against the sofa, unable to move, unable to go to her, or even utter a sound other than the wheezing attempt at breathing. You’re going to choke. Everything is so cold, and your body trembles more violently.

Later, when the agents ask you how long that lasted, you have no response. Nothing was real for a while, not your own body, not the state of your mind, not the dead body on the floor, nor the spectre of your wife standing over it all like a menacing angel of deliverance. All you remember is pure, cold horror. If anybody has undeniably good motive for murder, it’s the two of you.

And, there’s a distinct memory of relief, because at least, _it's over_. 

Things can always get worse but Fred himself can no longer be a threat. Somebody pushed him, or somebody pulled him, or perhaps you worked together; it’s impossible to say, but whatever the reason, Commander Waterford is dead.

Either way, he gets a much less prolonged and certainly less painful death than he earned during his life. 

Part of you wants to vomit because after all this, it seems rather anticlimactic. You expected more drama, more pomp, like a literal _war_. You wanted to be left shattered and bloody from battle, to have proof of what a virulent monster he was and what a difficult fight it had been. Instead, your bruises will heal and your scars will be inside, like always. You’ll tend to your wounds in the privacy of your bedroom, wincing at the way they bring on more nightmares over the years. You’ll have to tend to Serena’s wounds too, and her to yours, curled away from the world in the darkness once again. The lonely solace of your life together had lifted for such a short time and now the veil has fallen again.

  
But he _is_ gone, and that’s something.


	15. the brightest kind of flame

You and Serena are blessed, as Tuello claims, with a week in isolation from each other, interrogated by every governmental agency you’ve heard of, including Gileadean officials, and some you hadn’t. Your nights are haunted and chilly, silent, so atrociously lonely in solitary. You're not allowed to see your children, or Moira, or Luke, and especially not Serena. Was this what it was like for her at that time? Every morning, you wake up aching. The bed is not the problem, because for a prison, it is unexpectedly comfortable and warm. But you feel a void inside, irreversibly frigid and tense. You can't smell her, can’t hear her soft breathing, can’t feel her anymore. She's fading. There are no wails from a little baby boy, no happy screams of children as they get ready for school. No one is there to run their fingers down the small of your back as you brush your teeth. She's not there to drop small kisses onto your bare shoulder as you step out of the shower at night when the house is quiet again. 

Instead, you cry. Every morning until you're even more empty than when you woke up. 

Someone must take pity on you because on the fifth morning, your breakfast includes french toast with syrup instead of the usual cold cereal and skim milk. It doesn't help. You continue to wake up empty and miserable, even with a bit of sugar to look forward to.

On the ninth day, Tuello visits your cell, accompanied by two agents you don't recognise and your lawyer. They ask all the same questions and you give them all the same answers.

I don't know.

I can't remember.

He fell.

Yes, I’m glad he’s dead.

At the end, they all linger in the door, and Tuello tells them to go on ahead. You nod to your lawyer to do the same. While you don't trust him nearly as much as Serena does, he's still the same man that was at your wedding. He's had dinner numerous times at your house, he’s played with your kids, you’d gone out for drinks, just the three of you. He should be a friend but he's also an agent of the American government, which you’re not certain is even on your side this time. 

You remain motionless on your bed, hands folded neatly in your lap but your chest is on fire with questions you need answered. He props himself up against the doorframe, like he's in some sort of Abercrombie casualwear ad. It must be nice to have no concerns in the world. 

His voice just floats over everything. "She’s fine, so you can rest easy. I’ll tell her you are as well."

Briefly, your eyes narrow at him, frustration lapping at your ears. "I’m _not_ fine. Tell her that."

For the first time since he showed up at the crime scene, it's obvious he's uncomfortable. Why cover up the truth?

"Tell _my_ _wife_ I miss her, that I’m not sleeping well and I cry everyday. I need to touch her and hold her, and kiss her, or I'm going to go crazy. Tell her all of that." 

There’s more you want to say, much scarier things and intimate things, all manner of secrets about your life together but you know she'd kill you for telling Mark any of those, even though it would give you a small thrill to watch the grimace on his face. Like the way you sort of miss her short nails digging into your arms as she grinds herself against your thigh, as you get to watch her above you, blonde hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, coming hard and breathlessly whispering your name. Or how she uses the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe away your tears and snot in the middle of the night when you wake up sobbing from night terrors. You miss the taste of her and the smell of her, all of her. Mostly, you just miss being able to gaze at her, watch her smile at you, or something she’s reading in a book, or at your children.

He’s visibly restless and uneasy now, switching his weight between feet and crossing his arms. No doubt he doesn't want to hear any of that. _So, yes, Agent Tuello, I’m just fucking fine, then. Tell my wife that you’re in love with she can go fuck herself, I’m just fine being locked in a room away from her and our kids_. Is that better? Anything to soothe his feelings. You hold his stare, unflinching and sour.

"In that case," he murmurs, as if it’s a secret he’s not meant to be telling. "She told me to tell you to remember Algonquin.” 

The air quickly leaves the room, and you gulp for it like a carp on the bottom of a fishing boat. 

“Take care of yourself, June.” He gives you the most irritating nod as he leaves and signals for the guard to lock your cell again.

 _Algonquin_. 

Months after Daniel was born, the Woodmans insisted that she take a break from the constant stress of a newborn baby. A short holiday, just you and Serena alone. Away from the constant sleepless nights, the exhausted fighting, the frustrations, and chapped nipples from a teething child. Sort of like practice, they told her, as she vibrated anxiously at the prospect and you were convinced she was going to combust with both fury and terror. Leave her infant? Ridiculous. You’re still not sure why she agreed on camping; probably just the remnant of some pastoral aesthetic daydream, and you'd claimed it was a trial run for taking the kids another time. You wanted them to be able to enjoy the outdoors, learn some survival tricks, be responsible and self-sufficient in some tiny way. 

That weekend had been nothing but granola bars, complaints about wet wood, and sitting in a stuffy tent. It had rained almost constantly, and despite the hot summer weather, it still wasn’t particularly enjoyable. You’d gone for what was meant to be a relaxing forest hike with her in the rain on Saturday until you were both soaked to the bone and shivering, and Serena was bitching nonstop about how her shoes were going to be soggy for the whole weekend while you secretly hoped she’d slip and fall down the cliffside if she kept that attitude up. 

As a solution, you both stripped down and changed into dry clothes, laid out everything in the car, and went for a drive, blasting the heat as she grumbled in the passenger seat. The night was spent chilly and damp, with a nice side of irritation and frustration emanating from you and her all night. It was supposed to be a peaceful, quiet break from the world, but instead it felt a little too much like Gilead in some way.

It was still raining lightly Sunday. All day. But it was bright enough to read in the tent during the day without a flashlight, and more importantly, it was dry. You’d spent almost the entire day cuddled with her in your underwear under the sleeping bag as cool rain fell, tip-tapping musically above. You’d done something that was incredibly rare, something usually reserved for touch and the printed word. It had been weeks, months maybe (if ever), since you’d really sat down and _talked_ to each other, but you had then. Lying side by side, touching her skin, tracing the cross tattoo along her ribs, the one she finally tells you about, feeling her voice flutter across your body, where nothing outside the tent even existed anymore. You’d laughed a lot, until your cheeks hurt from smiling, and in the soft lull of one conversation, she’d told you she loved you for the second time ever. It wasn’t like the first instance, as a ploy to derail you, or even for any reason except perhaps, it felt like the right time. And you had allowed yourself to be wrapped in the idea, to curl up around the belief and faith in her. It’d taken so long to feel that acceptance and not be fearful of it; it had taken that long not to be distrusting of her motives.

Serena Joy was actually capable of love after all. Honest, genuine love.

Of course, you hadn’t been able to say anything in return because you swore you would never lie about that; you’d just slipped your hand up her body, cradling her face and kissed her, for what felt like hours. That was the first time in an incredibly long while that you two had just kissed for its own sake, without anything else planned or desired. Her lips were soft and certain against you, your hands entwined in her tangled hair as she held onto you. 

For a while, you existed only in a flickering quiet dream.

And to think you didn’t believe you could love her. If that wasn’t love that weekend, you’re not sure you’d know it if it smacked you over the head with a baseball bat. 

That evening, she’d turned to you under the harsh beam of the flashlight as rain tapped against the nylon roof of your tent and placed her book down, waiting patiently for you to do the same, saying nothing. 

With a huff, making a show of your irritation, good-natured really but you still tease her when you can, you slapped your novel down against the sleeping bag and turned to face her too, one eyebrow raised. “Yes?”

There was a look in her eyes, something oddly unfamiliar as you could see the glisten of growing tears. Her fingers had spidered out, crawling over the curve of your arm, down to your fingers where your wedding ring rested.

Most of the time, Serena refrained from quoting Bible passages anymore. She kept that sort of thing to herself, except that weekend, in the peace of your little shelter with just the two of you and the rain outside as she murmured into your ear. “ _Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death_.”

That was Algonquin. That’s what she’s telling you to remember: _Love is strong as death_. 

Fucking Serena.

Your beautiful, overdramatic, cryptic, idiot wife.

 _Fuck_.  
  
  


On the sixteenth day—way past the date they had promised you’d be let go—a guard comes to the cell, unlocks the door, and tells you it’s time to leave. Sixteen days without your family or your friends or your own bed. Only cops, lawyers, terror, loneliness, and Mark Tuello. 

As you sign the paperwork at the outtake desk, the woman behind the window looks you over, and merely says, “You know how these things are.” as if that’s some sort of apology for how long they’ve kept you locked up here like a criminal even without pressing a single charge. You do know how war is, and how laws bend for the sake of politics. You don’t really care about apologies from a system that would have you interrogated for defending yourself against a monster, a rapist, and a facist leader of a totalitarian government. Commander Fred Waterford deserved way worse, in your opinion and you’re well aware that vengeance isn’t a healthy frame of mind to have, but here you are, sixteen days later and craving your life back. And chocolate.

“Has Serena Osborne been released today as well?” you ask her, because she seems nice enough she may answer your question.

For a moment, she glances at you in confusion, then down at the paperwork, scanning your name as if you’ve just asked about yourself. “Who?”

“Serena Osborne,” you repeat, slower but something is bothering you about the clerk’s hesitation before shaking her head. Serena better not have confessed to anything she didn’t do. At this point, you wouldn’t put it past her. Suddenly, the idea that Serena has taken the metaphorical bullet for Fred’s death isn’t such an unbelievable nightmare. It’s exactly the type of sword she’d throw herself on, because that is exactly the type of person she thinks she is.

_She told me to tell you to remember Algonquin._

_Love is strong as death._

Shit, Serena, what have you done?

* * *

Moira has basically chained you to the sofa and taken your phone away. No more phone calls to Tuello, or the cops, or your lawyer, or her lawyer. No more going on the internet and obsessively refreshing the news. After spending the afternoon with all your kids, they’re in bed now and you’re going crazy. Nobody will tell you anything and just in general, that seems pretty suspect. Surely you have some rights? The room is ripe with tension, all because of you. You can't get comfortable, constantly shifting around, restless, picking and biting at your nails—something you’d never done before. Moira is next to you, every so often elbowing you or patting you comfortingly, depends on how involved she is in the TV show. 

Nick is next to her, brooding as per usual and there’s not a single thing you can think to say to him anymore. John and Mary are sitting with their eldest son between them on the loveseat as he struggles to keep his eyes open. Today apparently was a bad evening for night terrors.

Nine o’clock comes and goes. Nine-thirty. It’s almost ten by the time you’re startled out of your strange funk of blankly staring at the flashing colours on the TV screen. There’s a knock on the door and Moira looks to you and you look to her, then John, and everyone is wondering the same questions. Who is it and who is gonna get up from their comfy spot on the sofas. Maybe it’s because you’ve given up on getting an answer, but you’re not in any particular hurry, and have no concerns. In fact, you’d like to just ignore it because if it’s more police with some shitty news about how Serena’s being extradited back to Gilead, you’d rather just not hear it.

You’ve tried to make your peace with it.

God, that seems like all you ever do is try to force the disparate pieces of your life together in some form that vaguely resembles a coherent story, just to deal with it. You can convince yourself that various things are for the best, or you want or don’t want something else, or how great your life will be if you just give it time. It’ll get better. Twisting and wrenching every person and feeling into your supposed dream life seems like a particularly precarious idea, because one day it’ll collapse and again, you’ll be crushed under the landslide.

So, you can try to make peace with whatever Serena’s choices have been, but all that’s happened is a hazy sort of dissociation from reality rather than accepting it for what it is.

“Fine!” Moira huffs when nobody moves. “I’ll get it, I guess.” She shoots daggers at you, but who’s the one who just got out of two weeks in prison? For fuck’s sake.

From the hallway, all you hear is Moira. “Of course it’s you,” is all she says and you already know the person at the door but something paralyses you to the cushions, waiting. “The cat’s come back,” Moira announces as she makes her way back into the living room, with Serena following behind, looking exhausted and drawn, but still rather fine considering the Hell you’ve both been through for the last two weeks.

Your heart trips a little and your pulse begins to race, but it’s not in that happy, pleasant way you’d expected. It’s anxiety, and a chill sneaks across your skin as you watch her enter and gaze over the people gathered around the TV. The Woodmans both seem to be the happiest to see her, gushing almost that she’s finally back, much like they did when you arrived back home. Nick, well, he is pretending very hard to be pleased but there’s a certain sullenness he’s always had that just seeps out anyway. Of course he’s not glad to see her back again, the woman who has basically stolen his child from him. (With your blessing, you nag yourself.)

Moira flounces back down on the sofa next to your statuesque form. You’ve managed to display absolutely no reaction to her return, and as much as part of you wants to run to her, there’s a larger part that’s actually angry she’s here. Properly resentful almost.

You can’t fucking understand why.

When she meets your eyes, there’s a slight cock of her head, but nothing more and you stare blankly at her, as if she’s just anybody else. Meanwhile, the words you’d spewed at Tuello to tell her seem like some alien language you’ve forgotten how to speak. 

Instead of even greeting her, you stand up, flatten out your t-shirt and walk away, right upstairs without even a second glance. Maybe she’d look confused or hurt if you had even bothered to glance back. You somehow don’t care.

Of course, she follows you. That’s just what she does. And you wait for her footsteps to creak outside the bedroom door, then the whine of the door opening.

  
  


“I thought you’d actually taken the fall for what happened with Fred,” you state abruptly, as if that’s some sort of explanation for your behaviour. And it is, in a way. You’d spent the last day in a constant state of heightened grief and anxiety about the fact this dumbass wife of yours is actually stupid and selfish enough to do that.

“What?” To her credit, she appears genuinely confused.

“I thought you’d confessed.” What doesn’t she get? It’s exactly the sort of bullshit performative thing she’d do to prove what a better person she is than everyone else. (Than you.)

She sighs, tilts her head and narrows her eyes at you. “Why would I do that?”

The way her voice is sharp and prickly, as if you’ve just suggested the stupidest fucking thing she’s ever heard makes you feel like a moron and you sputter out the first thing that comes to you: “Algonquin!”

Again, a little more impatient this time, she asks, “What?”

“Algonquin! What you said to me there.”

For a long time, she just stares at you, until it begins to get uncomfortable. To wriggle out from under it, you move and take a seat on the bed, avoiding her eyes.

“You’re an idiot, June.”

So level, so precise, so calm. There’s something underneath it all, something like disbelief or annoyance though. As if you consider her really that stupid.

“That’s not what I meant,” she begins, slowly. “You think I would just throw away our life if I don't have to?"

 _Our life_ , you note, repeating the words in your head. Not _lives_ , not _my._ _Our life_. 

"You don’t know me at all," she scoffs, actually offended, and in the face of that, you cower a little, meekly smiling up at her apologetically. But, honestly, it’s not like she didn’t try to do exactly that, which is what got you both into this whole fucking mess in the first place. Inside however, something snaps. Your life is a barren tree branch in an ice storm.

“Serena,” you try, but your voice cracks before the final syllable squeaks out. The hot rush of fear and relief sweeps up your chest, into your throat. For a moment, you stare at her and she stares back, silent, but in your entire resolve is crumbling and cracking. Fuck, all you want is her to _run_ to you, to grab you and convince you everything is finally okay. 

She doesn't. 

Instead, she pulls out a switchblade aiming specifically at your past, and maybe it’s meant to be a joke but it certainly doesn’t feel like one. "Do you think I would give Nick a chance to win you back?"

Wow, you hate her. And yet, your body is still pulling towards hers. There's not even the slightest hint of a grin on her face. She really means it, she really believes that you're that easy. She's your wife, for fucks sake. You’d taken vows.

Oh. Maybe she has a point.

It's not like it would be the first time one of your marriages falls apart because of Nick. It wouldn’t be the first time her marriage falls apart because of cheating either.

"Serena, if you don't shut up right now…"

Fighting with her the minute you're finally reunited had not been the plan but here you are. Her posture is rigid, eyes icy, jaw tight. You must mirror the same because you're clenching your teeth so hard you fear they may actually shatter. Why are you so angry with her? Those two weeks in the cell had been nothing but pure agony being away from your family, and you’re all together again and nothing feels like it should anymore. 

Her voice lowers, and warning bells scream in your mind with the feral threat behind it. "Would you like me to leave?" 

One half of you wants to cry, “ _Yes! Go!_ ” It’s so loud, so angry, so scared. The other half, however, is terrified in a different way, in a way where you wonder if she'd actually do it and you'd be alone again. And you can't bear that thought. Instead of answering, you look away from her, anywhere else because if you can just avoid the question entirely maybe this will all sort itself out. 

She moves past you and towards the crib where her son is sleeping, ignoring you completely now. She's running a finger over Daniel’s sleeping face when she speaks again, not in your direction, but it's obvious.

"If you decide you would like to stop punishing me for your imaginary delusions, I'd be grateful."

Is that it? Is it punishment for the type of person you still think she is? Maybe. Maybe it is.

"I'm going to see the girls. When I come back, hopefully you've made up your mind."

Shards of glass slice across your skin under her tone. She's angry too now and doesn't look at you as she leaves the room. At least she’s talking though; therapy is doing something for at least one of you.

It feels like an hour before she returns, and in the meantime, you do absolutely nothing. No thinking, no moving, nothing. Just sit there grimly, glaring at that white rose hanging above your dresser still, mocking. 

_I want to be together forever._ Nine white roses.

You'd sealed your lives together with vows and metal rings and a shared bed. She hadn't abandoned that this time, but if it hadn't been for your interference and Fred's loss of balance, she would have. It's never beyond the realm of possibility. Then again, she had another chance and chose differently. She chose you, and your family. 

Her gait is heavy, still stinging with anger at you or something else entirely as you hear her pacing down the hallway. And then it’s quiet. Dead silence.

The crumpled white rose stares at you from the shadows.

A soft yellow light streaks down the walls, bounces off carpets and picture frames of the kids. Your socks whisper against the rug as you stalk towards her. She’s just closing their bedroom door behind herself and on her way back to you, or so you assume. Perhaps the upstairs hall at 11 o’clock at night isn’t the best place for this, but you can’t think of any other way. Not now, not after over two weeks of separation. As she turns, jumping slightly, seeing you so close, her shoulders slump and you can tell what conflict she’s preparing herself for already. 

It’s not what she gets.

Instead, you latch onto her sleeve, and yank her closer, both hands quickly travelling up to grab her face, grasping tightly to her. Her skin is so warm and soft under your fingertips, and your body aches inside at the realization that you’d forgotten that. You’d lost even just that tiny memory of her in such a short time. Without thought, you’re tugging her down, gripping her ears and hair and any bit of her that you can hold onto. It hurts, the gnashing of teeth and lips that results from your wild, desperate plea, but she doesn’t jerk backwards like any sane person would have. Instead, she sucks the venom out of your mouth as if she’s trying to save your life. Her hands roam your body, all over, seeking a place to land and the gasp that escapes your mouth as she finally cradles your jaw, anchoring you to her, it’s so loud in the quiet house.

She tastes like stale coffee, or an old Tic Tac. Both, really. Bitter and minty sweet. Your nostrils still flare at the smell of her, even underneath the unfamiliar soap and laundry detergent. It occurs to you, and not for the first time perhaps, that you never, ever want to stop kissing her. _This_ is where she belongs. Not with Fred in Gilead, not in G-Dump, not on the Wall, not in prison. Millions of people may disagree with that particular sentiment, but this is no longer about what Serena Joy deserves or doesn’t deserve; it’s about what _you_ deserve, because you’re the one that’s been hurt most by her, directly and specifically and it should be your decision.

Your hands are ravenous, sliding everywhere now, unsure where to stop because you're restless to your very core, desperate to find something to hang onto in the last few week’s chaos. Slowly, you feel her palms move to your shoulders, holding you steady.

“June,” she murmurs, pulling her mouth away from your hungry one. It’s so gentle, and so grief-stricken at the same time. So unsure. But like she does, the thrum of her voice burrows into all the black spaces inside you and sets up home. It walks through and lights candles, brightening the space. Not too much, just enough to see a little better, to not be quite so frightened of the dark anymore. She doesn’t say anything more. Just your name and you shudder at the way it weaves over your body, like every dip and crevice is made to cradle it. She’s the water and you’re the stone, not the other way around.

“I was so fucking scared,” you offer her, as some sort of reasoning for your coldness. It’s not a great excuse, but it’s all you know. There’s no real logic behind anything you’ve ever felt for her. “Don’t scare me like that again, please.”

You remember the unsettled, almost sleepless nights of the last two weeks as you hold onto her, foreheads resting together. Her breath on your face is shaky and light as you sigh, closing your eyes. If you asked her, even she would admit that you’re not often vulnerable anymore. Not since Gilead. It stole something from you that you’ve never been able to get back, so you continue to build up walls and defend the remaining soft spots inside you with hardened defiance towards even those people who would never take advantage. So, this is a rarity as you mewl out a feeble prayer to her, tears slipping from your eyes just enough. “Don’t put me through it again.”

You’re comfortable enough in Canada, in this life, but there remains only one place you truly feel home anymore and that is in between blankets that smell like her, with her next to you, warm and sturdy. A dead rose and its wilted promise is no substitute. Four times, she’s left you now, and each time is worse than the previous. That’s your limit. You cannot do it again, and you know it with a cold kind of certainty you’d reserved for the most knowable things in your life, like how much you love your children, or the fact the sun will rise every morning, that gravity exists. 

God, you’re officially pathetic. You’d thought she’d done her worst work back in Gilead but now you see it even more clearly when you consider yourself now, and how needy, how vulnerable, how utterly dependent on her she’s made you. How ruthlessly in love you are. And that’s the pitiful reflection you see every time she swans back into your life after one of these momentary escapes. It makes you livid and terrifies you at the same time.

When she’d come back from prison the previous time, you’d gone to bed with her, stiffly falling asleep with barely a word uttered and low-level resentment pooling in your gut. It had been the same just now, that same nasty sludge pushing its way up your throat. It’s what fear tastes like, you suppose. A very specific type of fear that you’d felt very few times before. It’s difficult to make your way through it, but you always have before, and this time you don’t want to waste the time in the liminal space of unforgiveness and dread.

The truth seems so obvious suddenly, like those bathtub epiphanies scientists have in your old textbooks. “I’m just… I’m so tired of having to miss you.” It’s not a hobby you want anymore.

Her thumb brushes over your bottom lip as she pulls in a tight breath and you hold onto her wrists, content merely to share her space like this. Your fractured pieces come together in silence with hers interlocking, and locking down.

* * *

The sofa is pretty full now, and you didn't miss the sharp glance she shot towards Nick when she thought you weren't looking. Of course, she followed that up by burrowing tighter against you, staking her claim as if there is any sort of competition at all. You briskly whisper at her to stop and she sighs, gruffly. 

“Why is he here?” Oh, she knows exactly how loud her voice is and that everyone can hear the question despite the television. 

Moira glances to you, then at her with a grimace. "You want him to be homeless, Gilead?" she asks.

Serena squeezes your fingers, and you're not certain she even knows she's doing it. Choosing to ignore the question, she posits another of her own. "Where's Rita?"

"G-Dump," you mutter, just as unhappy with the idea as you guarantee Serena will be. Especially with Nick getting to crash on the sofa here. 

She snorts and waves a finger at Nick, still unable to let go of the imaginary power over him she thought she had in Gilead. "You should trade with her. It's only sensible."

Can she just stop being herself for two minutes? Is that too much to ask? 

Nick clenches his teeth for a second and shakes his head with a disbelieving scoff because there's only so much of Mrs. Waterford he can take. "Maybe you should, Serena." He says her name like he's choking on bile.

It has literally been ten minutes and Serena has managed to ruin everything all over again. It's worse than with her and Moira. You can feel her body coil and tense but before she has a chance, you loop your arm through hers and pull her back to earth. She shifts around fidgeting with her pockets before pulling out a folded piece of paper. You think she’s going to hand it to him and it'll be some shitty piece of news but instead she slips it in your hand, leaning over to whisper in your ear.

"It’s something I thought about on my way home today. Just an idea."

Hearing her say "home" is more than enough to make your heart clench, with a relieved sort of pleasure but as you open the paper, a listing for a small bungalow peers back at you. That makes things even more intense. She murmurs again, "I got a huge advance on my next book. We can talk about it some other time, but I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about this."

Two bedrooms and a finished basement that can easily double as another bedroom. Cute, quiet street. Close to schools and shops, especially that farmer’s market you like so much in the summer. A small backyard but enough for a dog when the kids are older if you can afford it. Parking space for a car. Front porch, west-facing for sunsets. Without a second thought, you’re imagining Nicole, Hannah, and Dan on the front lawn as the sun sets after school, you’re seeing Serena in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom with its teal-coloured walls. It’s not the type of decision that a person should just jump into but even without seeing the house in person, something relaxes in your chest, soothing, like the slow ebb of waves after a storm. It's a home.

In Gilead, you weren’t certain you’d ever be in a house that was really yours again, that wasn’t overseen by some man who carried the title of Commander and his vile wife, seeking only your womb for their own gratification. This little house Serena has picked out has your name all over it already. It’s completely the opposite of those stately mansions of Gilead with their imposing turrets and arched windows. Hell, this house looks like it would be a garage or a pool house to them.

Cozy, is what you see. Maybe a bit unbearable when Nicole and Danny are both going to be in their terrible teens, but by then, Hannah will be grown and you and Serena levelled out into perfect sync. (You can only hope.)

That is, if you two can stop murdering Gilead’s top Commanders for a little while at least. You got away with this one, but next time, you probably won’t get the benefit of the doubt.

There's the tired, lonely, skin-hungry part of you that pictures all the kids at a sleepover elsewhere and you and Serena with that little bungalow all to yourselves, baptising it, fucking against every wall, making her come for hours on end, over and over. Making it holy. God, if you can get one wish… 

You fold the paper up again, sliding it back into her pocket as you lean towards her even more, whispering in her ear. “Let’s do it.” She shudders and her eyes close as if you’re stroking her with your words.

Why stop making impulsive decisions now? Everything you’ve ever done with her has had a particular air of spontaneity, or thoughtlessness. You’d call it carefree, based on the fact you trust your instincts around her, but everybody else would certainly call you reckless. Both feet hit the water at the same time, no dipping a toe in anymore. The sooner you get started on this, the better.

Slowly, a stupid, shit-eating grin cracks her face and it feels disgustingly good to see how happy she is. You’ve done that. Who needs violence and guns when you have so much more power like this? This isn’t Mrs. Waterford. Whoever that Serena was is gone forever, and this is who you get instead.

She doesn’t ask if you’re really sure. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to admit the doubt, or maybe it’s because she really has no doubts. Either way, she’s beaming as she presses her lips to yours, right there in the living room, in front of everyone, and it’s so unlike her to be so bold and public with her affection. Her lips are rose petals falling against your skin, soft but real, over and over. You inhale deeply as you kiss her back as your hands float over her hands, arms, cheeks, hair. She sinks into you, sagging against the sofa and sighing deeply into your mouth and you know she can feel the matching smile in your kiss. You can’t stop. It's like all your body has ever wanted and all it’s ever known is her.

It’s too easy to lose yourself in her like this, when she wraps you like a wild vine with her lips, tongue, and fingers. If this is being lost in the woods, you never want to be found. But peeking through the foliage is real life, and the fact you’re very much in the living room of a house you still share with a crowd of other people, some of whom are absolutely not pleased having to bear witness to you and her making out not even two feet away. Moira, Nick, and probably the Woodmans. _It’s been weeks_ , you want to whine as some sort of excuse.

A gruff cough comes from your friend next to you and it snags your consciousness, pulls you from the dreamy fog you’d much rather melt into forever. Very reluctantly, you push against her chest, wavering each second but persevering nonetheless. You’re pathetic probably, the way you giggle at her disappointed groan, and despite everything and everyone, her nose presses into your hair, and her lips whisper along your neck, slowly building into something more substantial. Your body shudders under her touch as your breath hitches. Definitely not the place. Nevertheless, you tilt your head just enough to allow her even more access to your skin, sighing as she takes advantage.

“Stop,” you whisper, but make no move to get away. “You’ve gotta stop.” Your voice cracks but gets slightly more insistent despite the fact you can barely keep your eyes open. Still, you can feel the tension in the room, radiating off Nick especially. (Which is probably part of her point, in all honesty.)

Her teeth find your earlobe, nipping and tugging just enough that sparks fly through your body, straight to your fingertips. “You love it,” she murmurs, her voice so low that it seems to shake your bones, deep in your chest. Claws of your hands grip tightly against her thigh, digging into her soft flesh through her jeans.

“Well, I love _you_ , but—”

 _Shit_. Quickly you cut your own thoughts off. Everything in the room grinds to a halt; even Serena appears to freeze, her body going incredibly taut and her mouth inching back from you. You hadn’t meant to say that out loud, not like this. It was so casual, so thoughtless and natural to spew such a declaration at her. It wasn’t in some life or death speech, or in a secluded tent, or as a tactic to distract from an argument. There was no need for it at all. Your gaze locks onto the wall across the room, unable to find the courage to look at her or even your best friend. You especially can’t look further over to your ex-lover who not only had to deal with all your PDA but now this. It’s just rude. You’re a very rude sort of person, you realize, knowing for sure how much she has officially rubbed off on you.

The silence breaks with Moira’s long, disgruntled sigh. “Hmm,” she groans, irritated by the unfortunate revelation. “It only took you two murdering her ex-husband for that.”

“He fell,” you both snap, too quickly, at the same time.

Nick flinches and Moira snorts. Whether or not your friends believe you is pretty inconsequential because as long as the government does is all that matters. The silence descends as you can tell Moira is itching to say more but that can be a conversation for another time, just like her commentary on Serena’s behaviour right now can be saved for another time as well. Right now you’d much rather take this clipping of a new house and your wife’s hand and go to your bedroom where you can laugh, smile, whisper and touch her in peace, with your baby boy sleeping safe nearby, and your daughters down the hall. Just relax and feel safe with her. Quiet. Shifting away from her warmth, you snap your hand around her arm and tug her after you.

* * *

The bathroom is humid from the hot water of her shower as you slip past the door.

A blob of blue toothpaste drops off the toothbrush and into the sink with a plop. Your lips crinkle, turning up at the fact it’ll likely be you that cleans up this mess too. But she turns to you with a mouthful of foam and a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, hair tied up in a messy bun, trying to smile in her stupid oversized t-shirt that says “Shell Yeah!” on it with a cartoon of a hermit crab. What you thought had been a _beggars can’t be choosers_ situation a year ago seems to actually be just who Serena is underneath all the prim frippery of well-tailored suits and austere formalwear. She likes ugly, dumb, cheesy t-shirts from thrift shops, especially if they contain the worst puns known to man, and that knowledge blows your mind considering the persona she insists on putting up for the rest of the world. You’re not sure even Fred knows that she actually and honestly has something approaching a sense of humour. He may know more than you about her past, but you’re pretty sure you always knew more about the future. 

The thing is, you’re wearing one too. It’s hers, so it’s extra large on you, but she mutters that it suits you exceptionally well when you enter the room. _Stupid is not a crime_. Well, the sentiment is technically true, you suppose so you can’t argue with that. The red plaid cotton boxers you’re wearing are hers too but she has no snarky commentary about them. You grab for the much more adult toothpaste as she finishes spitting a giant glob of vaguely blue goop into the sink and rinses, dabbing at her lips with a towel in much too pretentious a way considering her ridiculous attire and choice of children’s toothpaste.

Sometimes it’s disconcerting how she just stands and watches you like this, as if not keeping an eye on you is going to give you license to escape. So you stare back, directly into the mirror, able to see both of you at once, and it hits you that you look good together. _Stupid_ , but good. Maybe she’s coming to the same conclusion because her shoulders sag a little and she props a thigh against the vanity, turning to you just enough. For a moment, your gaze lingers on her, slowly moving up and down her body with no specific purpose but it’s been almost three weeks since you’ve seen her and really some of your last memories of her in this house were very different than these loose-fitting grey pajama bottoms and an ugly t-shirt.

Despite her particular sense of sleepwear fashion, you linger just a little too long on the way she’s loosely tucked part of the hem of her t-shirt into the elastic waistband. It wouldn’t take much to pull that away, down, and dive between her legs. Sure, there are many places you want your mouth to be rather than frothing up a minty storm. Mostly you want your tongue stroking her clit, lips full, and her writhing on the bed. Of course none of that is possible right now and especially not in the bathroom you share with the rest of the second floor, but it’s a flickering thought that comes and goes.

She must notice something in your gaze because she clears her throat, redirecting your wavering attention back to her face.

“You remember my book?”

It’s not the topic you were expecting and you take a second to spit the remaining toothpaste out. “Sure.” It’s obvious she’s talking about the new one; _nobody_ is allowed to mention the old one. It doesn’t exist. Fascism loves to ban books, so you suppose Gilead’s not completely out of either of your systems, but for what it’s worth, sometimes maybe a book like that shouldn’t be talked about in this house anymore. 

Her lips quirk, just a little at whatever she sees, as her thumb reaches out to brush stray foam away from the corner of your mouth. Everything inside flutters at even that delicate touch. If anybody had so much as hinted two years ago that you’d be standing in a tiny Canadian bathroom with Serena Joy Waterford tenderly wiping toothpaste off your lip after getting off the hook for killing her husband, you’d have had a stroke. And of the rest of it may as well have been a bullet through your eye socket.

“I thought I’d arrived,” she begins, her voice creaking with the purposeful quietness. “But I think I was still waiting for _this_.” Her hand lingers a little, knuckles brushing along your cheek until she tucks a lock of blonde hair behind your ear. “For this June.” 

It’s not that she didn’t love you before; that’s not what she’s saying, but you can tell she’s worried you’ll misinterpret her meaning. But even you can feel the difference between each and every version of yourself that you’ve plowed through. In her chapter, she’d said something about waiting her entire life for something she didn’t even realise she was waiting for, and it was only when she saw it, did she understand the scope of her stagnation. And it was you, she said. That’s what she had been waiting for. 

She’d worked her way through the other faces you’d worn, the other people you’d been but this is the first time since Gilead that you sincerely feel free. The Commander being dead, no longer lingering as a threat in some shadow of a past life, it’s probably why. All ties to Gilead as it exists have been completely severed, although it will always be part of you. Yet you’re still here and she’s still here, and nothing has changed about the ring on your finger. It could be so easy to throw in the towel and put a stop to the charade now that the threat of Fred stealing babies is over.

But, really, it was never about that.

You married her because you wanted to. Maybe even loved her already, if you can trust her perspective. It’s just as possible you’d been waiting for something too, something you didn’t even realise you wanted until that moment she was about to be taken from you for real, back to Gilead, for good.

Without Gilead this never would have happened, but since it did and there’s no easy do-overs for that, this is probably the most difficult but best outcome, because it’s nothing like you expected, or planned, or dreamt of on lonely nights in the Waterford’s attic prison. It’s definitely not what you wanted.

The thing is, when she talks about this June you are now versus whoever you’d been before, it sort of makes sense. Because she’s not the person you met in that musty sitting room. She’s not even the same woman that pressed her mouth to your inner thigh that first time. She’s not the person who secretly fucked you in a shitty slum apartment on the 15th floor while you lied about going to group therapy. It’s dangerous, Luce says, to push all those things aside because in reality, you and her are still all of those people too. But Luce isn’t the one who can’t breathe sometimes in the middle of the night, choking and crying, and who reaches out and only wants to find Serena beside her, who only wants Serena’s half-irritated, sleepy complaints as she still rolls over and takes you into her arms. Luce doesn’t have three children to take care of; Luce doesn’t have a wife who was a fascist bitch. She certainly doesn’t understand what it was like for years in that hellhole. All she talks about is trauma bonding and PTSD and healthy boundaries.

Of course you’ve bonded through shared trauma, and through trauma-inflicted on you, sometimes by her. But those are other people, you tell yourself. Right now, this Serena, the good one, the one she could have been years ago if things had been different, is watching you shove a toothbrush in your mouth and continue to work up a foamy lather that drips down your chin. And, yes, you’re doing it on purpose because the bigger the mess you make, the harder it is for her to withhold that smirk as she watches you. 

“Cool,” you respond after finally feeling your teeth to be clean enough. It comes out as a gurgle more than a word.

Maybe, years ago, Serena would have prickled at making such a heartfelt declaration and having you idly toss out something so non-committal in response. She’d likely have said something nasty, or marched away in a huff preparing to hold it against you for days in that shitty little passive-aggressive way of hers that truthfully, she still employs with some frequency. This Serena, however, blinks at you for a moment in silence, then rolls her eyes instead and softly bites her lip as she watches you carefully. Because she knows the difference now between actual indifference and someone busy getting ready for bed who may not have all the energy to deal with deep declarations of love in a bathroom. Because she trusts you.

Instead of a reprimand, you get a completely performative attempt at irritability and warning. “ _June_.” 

That is why you’re in love with her; because this whole thing should have been impossible, yet it isn’t. It shouldn't work, but it is. 

“You’re an idiot,” she snorts and swipes at your chin with a washcloth but there’s a way she lingers just a little, and there’s a tenderness in her touch. 

The baby makes some sort of mewling noise on the baby monitor she carries with herself everywhere. And then she’s gone.

* * *

Twenty-four hours ago you’d been alone, tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep on a prison mattress in a cold room that smelt like damp cement and bleach. Tonight you get to walk into a warm bedroom with soft lighting and a scent of baby powder and lavender detergent. Your son is asleep again, and your wife’s not far behind by the looks of her. It’s been a long day, and nothing seems better than crawling under the blankets with her and just passing out with visions of the next spontaneous, so-called mistake you’re about to make. You can’t stop seeing that little bungalow when you close your eyes. 

You take a long look at her and the worn paperback she’s got in her hands. _Autobiography of Red_ , it says on the cover, just under her fingers, with the thrift shop price sticker still stuck to the corner. Serena certainly has a thing for Canadian poets now; you almost wonder if there’s something to be jealous of considering her devotion. Then you look towards her left. How divine that pillow next to her seems, but something scratches at you from the shadows of the room and you turn to face the withered rose still hanging above your dresser mirror. It seems so pathetic, so lonely, so out of place now. 

She glances briefly at you as you pluck it from its string, recalling the meaning of a single white rose. She’d sent you nine, and you’d saved only one. Just like she’d given you so long ago in Gilead.

 _My feelings are pure_. 

It seems so tacky to hold onto this delicate, wrinkled, dusty remnant of a time when you didn’t understand your feelings, or hers. People generally save these sorts of things as mementos of times they want to remember, but you have no desire to relieve those days, not the Gilead ones nor those weeks without her. The clingy nostalgia seems out of place here, now, in a fresh life where you’ve escaped from all of that.

And besides, why hold onto the symbol when you have the real thing?

It flutters down into the trash bin with a soft, dead crunch amongst the papers and baby wipes in there. When you peer up towards her again, she’s flicking her attention between that and you with an arched eyebrow but no sound. Not a question, not a snappy comment. Nothing. 

She rests the book on her lap, patiently, as you kiss your son goodnight, hovering your fingers over the soft curves of fat baby cheeks. Still no words. Not even as you turn out the lights, casting the room into the glow from the clock and those cheap glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. You hadn’t even asked if she was done reading.

As your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, you can feel her curl down into the blankets, still waiting for something from you. 

“I don’t need it anymore.” It seems a little loud in the peace of a bedroom at night.

The roses spoke when there was no other way to make sound, when voices were smothered by distance, secrecy, or fear. They wounded when nothing else could. It was a necessary language once, misunderstood in nuance and yet perfectly emotional. In time, you moved away from the compulsion for concealing the truth behind fancy bouquets, as all people do when they become free, and instead turned to words. Those real sounds let loose from throats and poured from tongues did the work of one, or three, or nine, without the glyphic obfuscation of passed down meanings. They felt more real than a rose in your hand. 

The words have a scent too, a feel, a sound, and a taste. Watching a beautiful thing die on your windowsill, thorns and all, no longer holds the same need in you, and when the words are free, it’s an unnecessary cruelty. 

She will love her flowers, tend to them, nurture them the same as her children, but she doesn't need to cut them off at the stem any longer for you to know. You don’t require such gestures because you can say the words now, you make the vows, you whisper your fears and dreams to each other.

Her hand reaches out to take yours under the duvet, understanding why that rose is thrown away. “I know.”

______the end.


	16. epilogue

Five Years Later

Most peak summer days in the city are oppressive with the honeyed cling of humidity, closing in ominously on anybody daring enough to breach the safety of the shade or air-conditioned cooling centres. But not by the lake where you are now, with the gentle breeze off the water and lush vegetation, including new green grass, all around you. Over the years before you’d arrived, much of the Toronto Islands had fallen victim to constant spring floods and the rising water levels throughout the entire Great Lakes but what is left is enough to give you a chance to be thankful for the little you do have. You get to have a picnic with your family on a beautiful summer day, away from the heavy heat of the concrete jungle. _The small things_ , your mother used to say every time you complained about some larger inconvenience. Something about silver linings. Serena would probably say _small miracles_.

Maybe she’s right. 

Moira laughs loudly somewhere to your left, and it makes you smile because it’s a rare sound even now. And even more surprising, it’s your ex-husband who has inspired it in her. There’s something that floats through the air alongside the scent of freshly cut grass and blooming dogwood. Sweet, maybe bittersweet really. Nothing will ever smell quite as fresh as it used to, in the time before, in Boston. This city, however welcoming it’s been, will never have that gentle nostalgia of home, of your youth. That home is gone. Forever. So, as much as you’ve been content, and building a new home on the shores of Canada, as beautiful as it’s been so far, there will always be a part of you that longs for the total chaos of rotaries during rush hour or that old beer smell of Williams in Southie. The Globe newspaper in the boxes here isn’t the same. You never hear the Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events anymore.

So, here, it’s a mix of emotions knowing all that is lost, but in the sunshine, with Serena’s fingers lazily stroking through your loose hair as you rest your head on her lap and hear all your children laughing just a few feet away, it might be okay. Your eyes slip shut against the sun, just feeling the gentle touch of your wife, and what a strange thought that still is, even years later. The voices surrounding you are all happy, all content. When Nicole screeches out an ear-piercing wail, your eyes snap open but Serena’s already on it.

“Danny!” she calls, piercing the calm and ignoring the fact you’re all trying to enjoy a quiet afternoon picnic. “Put that down!”

Maybe if you were more curious, you’d take a glance at what weapon of childhood torture he’s wielding against his older sister this time. They have some sort of scare competition with each other involving insects and other disgusting things. Maybe it’s a worm, or mud, or a beetle, probably not a snake like last time. The worst was the dead squirrel he carried home from the park in his backpack and unleashed it at the dinner table, and giggled like a tiny chaos god in the resulting melee.

He’s taken after his birth mother in so many ways, you think. A stubborn brat. A lovable asshole. A shit-disturber. But Serena claims he gets all that from you. Especially after Nicole, your flesh and blood, responded to his squirrel prank by dropping a white, fuzzy substance on the sofa one morning and grinning widely, so damn proud of herself. Confusing it for furry rocks, as she claimed with a mischievous flicker in her eye, it turns out it was mouldy dog shit.

When you glance around at the ragtag family you’ve assembled, a wave of peace washes over you. There’s Luke, and his new wife, Jessica. Newlyweds, really. You remember the way his soft eyes used to sparkle when joking with you, and you can see it now when he looks at her. Again, there’s always going to be a twinge of discomfort, more for the grief of loss more than anything resembling jealousy, but you’re genuinely happy for him. It’s only right that he gets to move on as well. Jessica already has a daughter too, and the family is good for Hannah. There’s no tension between yours and theirs, and Hannah is welcome to come and go as she wishes. After all, she’s a teenager now. Your little baby is so grown up and as difficult as it is to trust the world outside your house’s walls, you have to.

Moira. Your beloved Moira. Your rock. Your touchstone. She's had a difficult time in the last year after her first real relationship since Odette ended in bullshit and lies, but she's finally moving on. Her work makes her fulfilled, and the kids make her laugh harder than anything else. She's even taking a chance with a new woman, a little more stable this time and not so prone to insane bouts of paranoia. And besides, she's still got Erin. Again, you can't be jealous about the strength of friendship that exists because you know it's not the same as yours with her, but it's just as significant now. When you stare across the spread of food and see them chatting, and Moira's shoulders are relaxed and her mouth opens in a huge bellowing laugh, it's just the way it needs to be. And, Rita, who is only visiting for a short time because she’s found family in Quebec, distant relatives but family is still family, so she visits occasionally when she can handle being bombarded with memories of Gilead like a bag of bricks over the head. She’d been there so much longer, and damaged more, you suspect. Being surrounded by you, Moira, Nick, Nicole, and Serena is an overload of a sort. Especially that last person, you suspect.

Then there’s Nick, striding towards your picnic blanket as Nicole’s attention shifts from her annoying little brother and to her father. Screaming after him, she grabs hold of his pants and pulls until he acknowledges her. That hasn’t been as easy as integrating your life with Luke’s has been. Even now, Serena never totally relaxes when he’s around, like she can’t tamper down the urge to order him around or push him into a corner. Old habits die hard, perhaps and she’s never seen him as anything other than the help. And now he’s also her daughter’s father, something she’s been incredibly reluctant to accept. For years, and you mean _years_ , she bristled visibly every time the word “Daddy” came from Nicole’s mouth. You remember the fights, the tears, the seething late night arguments with her that bled over into the following days. You remember calling her insecure and childish. The scraping sound of her voice accusing you of still being in love with him still rings crystal clear in your memories of those rough patches. 

He’s worn down now, with streaks of grey in his jet black hair even though he's three years younger than you, but his daughter still makes him smile; he’s not the Nick you used to know and she should understand you’re not that June either. When she’s making you come, you’re not thinking about him like she seems to believe. If he makes you smile, it’s not because you’re reliving the intimacy of your time with him. You don’t accidentally call his name in your sleep, as far as you know--and certainly that would be something she’d have no problem confronting you with. There have been many Junes, many Nicks, many Serenas. Everyone at this picnic--aside from the youngest children--have lived multiple lives, worshipped multiple gods, been part of multiple realities. Each one is its own little package, dropped into the past where it rests.

So, that’s a little murky, dark spot you doubt will ever entirely fade but at least she’s better now, more reasonable. She may stiffen at the sound of Nicole’s joyful cry of _Daddy_ , but she doesn’t fight it any longer. Now, as his shadow passes over you and he takes a cross-legged seat near to you, the softness in Serena’s thighs grows slightly more taut. Her fingers in your hair remain steady, but she grabs for your hand, her grip delicate yet possessive. 

It’s too much of a gorgeous day to concern yourself about Serena’s delusional insecurities and if she doesn’t understand that you choose every single night to crawl into bed with her in the little house you bought together in East York, that the ring on your finger isn’t just an empty gesture, and that the family you have with her is honestly all you want and all you need, then whatever. 

She’s an idiot. You married a fucking idiot.

The way Nick glances quickly at you and her, it’s obvious enough that this situation isn’t ideal for any of you. You’ve seen that gaze before. If it wasn’t for Nicole, he wouldn’t put himself through this. Part of you just feels sorry for him, and his pain and his love that is now impossible for you to return. It’ll pass eventually, as you learned with Luke, and all the tension will fade into the ether of lost ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’. Luke is so kind, so good to Nick, as if he sees in him the same broken man that stumbled into Canada years ago. Even now, he’s the one to pass Nick a drink with a welcoming grin.

You realise that you’re idly playing with Serena’s fingers and a warm flush floods your whole chest, despite her occasional superhuman levels of lunacy. She’s honestly stupid not to recognise this still. Maybe it’s Gilead, maybe it’s always been inside her, but you know she’s simply terrified to lose anybody, especially those she’s built her entire life around. She’ll dig her claws into you and never let go if threatened. Part of you just wants to scream: _Relax, you’ve won._

This is your family, all centered on this blanket… and wherever Serena’s devil spawn Danny has wandered off to. Of course you love him so much. _Much_ more than expected, in all truth. He’s your son too, but there is no doubt in your mind that he is collecting some disgusting creature to slip into an unsuspecting pocket. It wouldn't be the first time and you shudder with the memory of the leopard slug in the pocket of your leather jacket which he still claims was actually Nicole’s handiwork, or the chewed bubblegum roped throughout Serena's purse. 

“You should probably go get that feral son of yours,” you grumble from your comfortable place on her lap. 

“Or you could go get that son of _yours_ ,” she counters dryly without missing a beat.

Shrugging, you crane your head up to look at her, a cheeky smirk cracking across your lips. “Or we can just let the forest take him back to the rabid wolfpack he came from?” 

She tilts her head, squinting into the distance, as if she’s seriously considering the possibility. “Now, there’s an idea.”

“What can I say? I’ll have a good one every now and then.”

She snorts as she rolls her eyes, still not meeting your insistent gaze. “Yeah, once every five years or so.” There’s just the hint of a smile twisting her mouth up. It’ll be another wedding anniversary soon, and that blows your mind. They just keep coming.

Years ago, Serena never would have been able to joke about a child of hers getting lost in the woods, running away, or being taken from her in any way. There’s something to be said for this life you’ve built here, and the way it’s changed all of you. Life sometimes seems worse, mostly because Gilead is still not falling. It’s hanging on with the very last of its strength, sharp talons still gripping stone, not giving in. Despite all the work she’s done here, the work of the government, and everlasting war on all sides, it refuses to give in. And little by little, the tiny shards of its evil have pierced the armour of Canadian society, taking root in factions all over the country even now. 

But, aside from work, nothing really touches you anymore from that time. This chosen family you surround yourself with is a direct result of that period and those decisions, but they’re not the people that lived ten years ago. None of them, not even you. Those people are all dead. 

The June Osborne from 2006: Dead.   
Serena Joy Waterford, from 2013: Dead.  
Luke Bankole, 2001: Dead.   
Moira Strand, 2010: Dead.  
Hannah Bankole, 2017: Dead.

You only see their ghosts in the reflections of the faces around you. Even those often get lost somewhere, drift away, flee from their own memories. It’s best not to dwell too long on what has been left in the past, shrouded by cobwebs and dust. _Everything is not lost_ , you often remind yourself when your children laugh. All those people from so long ago have been and are lost, and when you stumble across old photos still taking up space on long-abandoned social media sites, nothing is familiar. But not everything, because you still have this.

Your photographs now feature different smiles, even on the familiar faces. You think about the one above your fireplace, of you, laughing. _That_ June is the one you see in the mirror now; no more lurking blue angler fish staring back at you from the depths. She’s happy, finally. Next to her is Serena, her own smile crinkling the edges of eyes it’s so bright and full. There are three children there too, all entwined arms and hands and shining eyes. The people in that picture are the ones you want to hold onto forever.

Hannah once asked you if perhaps the people left on earth were just the ones God forgot, the ones that were too slow to catch up to the angels. They were all the cursed for one reason or another, who couldn’t keep up and were left behind in the exodus. Angels only have so many hands, and they can’t possibly carry everyone.

For a while, you would have told her you were once convinced that was true. You hadn’t moved quickly enough when Gilead began, you hadn’t run fast enough when they were chasing you, you were forgotten in cages and houses of the powerful, ensnared in red robes. Blood wool gave way to blue satin against your skin; you hadn’t run fast enough from that either. Every time you reached for the outstretched, desperate hands of a roving angel, you’d lost your grip, tripped up, fallen behind again.

But you’d taken Serena’s hand instead, clasped it tightly in yours. She’d pulled you along when you stumbled, and you’d dragged her even when she dug her heels into the ground. Sometimes, you’re pretty sure neither of you even realised what was happening then. You clung onto her as she did to you, in equal measure, but even now, you’re not sure you could go as far as to call her your guardian angel.

Although, Fred Waterford certainly considered her that, sarcastic or not.

If Hannah asked you now, you’d have a much better answer because the only thing that’s been left behind you is those spectres of pain. God may or may not have anything to do with it, and angels probably don’t exist, but you don’t feel forsaken at all. You’ve not come up short with this imperfect life and as you roll off her lap, crawling to sit beside her she turns to you, a look of contentment on her face as Danny runs towards you across the grass.

“C’mere,” you murmur, trying to stop the spread of a wider grin and failing. If your guardian angel looks like Serena (and you wouldn’t put it past a god to play nasty games like that), you’re not about to argue because you sort of like it this way actually. She readily leans towards you, as if she's been impatiently waiting, knowing your desires before you do, meeting halfway as her lips brush yours with a sigh. 

Once dark, the floorboards had whimpered out as you tiptoed over them, _don't do it_. You’d sneaked closer and they complained more heartily: _Regret, regret!_ You were only allowed her in the shadows, in corners, in airless rooms, and under cover. An architect of that world, in part, you wondered once if she had intentionally left such barren, veiled spaces to be hers alone, to do as she wished within. She hid them in plain sight, shrouded in hopelessness as to prevent a nosy man from peering too long into the abyss. 

Her den. Her cracks. And yours. 

The sun is setting now across the lake, its oranges and pinks frosting the tips of trees, like glaze on candy apple. You've become rather fond of apples, to be frank. And all they represent. There are probably hidden crevices here too, but it is so bright outside. She doesn't wrestle you into darkness; you touch her in the open. Now, she loves you right where everyone can see it.

Gilead, those gods-cum-demons, your stunted lives, and that house, all seem like an old nightmare, something not quite real anymore. 

Nobody is hiding now.

Maybe you did kill God, all those years ago, one of the bad gods. You ate him up and spat his pieces right back out, chewed and mangled, a macerated mess of guts, sinew, and idolatry. 

Her lips brush your temple and linger there as she inhales, as your eyes slip shut. 

You have become the gods you thought you’d killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience and your kind words during this entire series. It has made it one of the best fandom experiences I've had. Your support and love has truly meant more to me than anything. Much love to each of you. Catch ya on the flipside one day maybe. <3 x

**Author's Note:**

>  _It's somewhat daunting to reflect that Hell is—possibly—the place where you are stuck in your own personal narrative forever, and Heaven is—possibly—the place where you can ditch it._  
>  Margaret Atwood


End file.
